we need the fbi to be accountable because we need the fbi to be effective. its mission is to protect us from the most dangerous threats facing our nation and as the director was last here, since the director was last here the drumbeats of the attacks on the united states from those directed or inspired by isis or other radical islamic terrorist has continued. for example, in june 2016, a terrorist killed 49 and wounded another 53 in orlando, frequently -- frequented by the gay and lesbian community. it was the most deadly attack in the united states soil since 9/11, but long afterwards in september, a terrorist stabbed ten in a mall in minneapolis and another terrorist injured 31 after he detonated bombs in new jersey and new york city, and in november, terrorists injured 13 after driving into students and teachers at ohio state university. our allies haven't been immune either, as we read in the newspaper frequently. we all recall the tragedy of july 2016 when terrorists plowed a truck through a crowd in france killing over 80 people. so we in the congress

talking to fbi agents? >> that's when the news broke about what had happened. the question that we all would ask now is how does he even get home? under the law, the fbi director is supposed to travel on a special plane that has special communications capabilities in order to be able to speak to the president and talk to other top officials. he flew out to los angeles on that plane, does he come back on that plane? does he have to fly commercial? we don't know, those are questions that are being asked, what happens now, does he get a chance to clean out his office, his desk? we don't know. we know that andrew mccabe is now the director of the fbi and he's going to be running this investigation into trump and russia. >> and jeff sessions, once again, he has recused himself from this russia investigation, and again, why was he brought in to oversee or approve the firing of the buy running the fbi? >> reporter: my guess is what they're going to say is that this decision to fire james comey was outside the purv

fbi under the bus. that's what i am very mad about and have been very mad about for a long time. you and let me ask you this because we are already hearing from democrats and even the president's lines in his own letter about the russian investigation, the fact that jim comey had exonerated him from any connection to that three times. what he think about that because there's going to be inevitable discussion and pressure that that's why the president fired him. >> i don't know what jim comey has told him but from press reports, the deputy director who i hope it does not the acting director apparently according to news reports i guess their true. i've never heard otherwise. the deputy director told the chief of staff at the white house month and months ago "this whole thing about russia is a bunch of b.s.." what's going on here? i don't know. it defies logic. >> martha: chuck schumer, senator schumer now in front of the microphone paired let's listen. >> firing director comey. i told the president mr. pr

not good for the fbi or not. this is about the timing. if the white house was sincere. >> tucker: you wish they fired him at some other time. >> i was that wave taken action, another appropriate actions at the time. >> tucker: we had a ton of segments about the russian conspiracy and vladimir putin having dinner with ivanka or whatever that conspiracy suggests but tonight, the president of the united states just canned the fbi director and people are wondering if this is good or bad. they're confused, they're legitimately confused. so i'm just trying to get the perspective of a former dnc spokesman when i ask you do you think jim comey should still be running the fbi are not? at the very civil question. >> i am not a fan of jim coming. >> tucker: so you're glad he's fired. >> this move by the white house was a try to kill the russian investigation, nothing more. >> tucker: why was looking forward to seeing you tonight because a lot of our viewers don't live in washington and they don't understand why people here

good job by the fbi. >> i have respect that the fbi has given it a second chance. as you know the fbi -- and i give them a lot of credit -- because they're fighting forces they're not suppose stod to be fighting. >> i was not his fan but what he did, he brought back his reputation. he brought it back. he's got to hang tough because there's a lot of people want him to do the wrong thing. what he did was the right thing. >> so now your white house is saying that what he did was wrong but previously as a candidate, donald trump was saying it's the right thing. >> you're confusing two things that don't belong. thanks for the trip down memory lane. that was fun but here's what happened today. today not in the campaign, in the white house, the president of the united states -- >> so that person doesn't exist anymore? candidate donald trump is a fictional karncharacter we can longer refer to? >> i'll ignore how unkind that is. he needs confidence in his fbi director and he doesn't have it. >> when is the moment he lost confidence? >> read the letters. it's a confluence of

-- and lead the fbi and restore confidence of the american people. this was the right decision at the right time. >> considering the bipartisan concern, why not support an independent panel? >> the evidence, the facts that are in public today are very clear, the former director of national intelligence has said there is no evidence of collusion. the president and i remain confident the committees in the house and senate looking into every aspect of issues that arise out of the election will be able to do their work in an orderly way. the president was informed several times by the former director of the fbi he was not under investigation. the simple fact is director comey had lost the confidence of the american people. the support i heard from them is of the senate today when i was over by the senate chamber, support for the decision being expressed in this capitol building and around the country is reflective of the fact that it was time for a fresh start at the fbi. the president did as he is done in so many cases, he provided strong leadership. to

of the fbi. which means he's now leading the fbi investigation into the russian attack on our election and trump campaign's potential involvement in it. his name is andrew mccabe. he reportedly took a long in person meeting with the president yesterday at the white house and now he has been put in charge at the fbi including in charge of the trump-russia investigation. given his previous named individual role in communicating inappropriately with the white house about this inveigation, given his extraordinary effort to kabosh damning reporting about this story we now know is well cooperated and multiple ply sourced and confirmed as true by the director of national intelligence, isn't there an issue here with deputy director andrew mccabe taking over the lead in the fbi's trump-russia investigation? isn't there? how can he specifically be the one leading this investigation now? "new york times" and "washington post" and nbc all confirmed this story in the days before he was fired yesterday, direct

fbi will continue. they can't be stopped, nothing can stop or slow down those investigators, nothing can intimate them out of doing their work. and that sounds awesome as a pep talk because, of course, we don't know that for sure. we've never been in this position before. we don't know what's going to happen to those investigations. late tonight, the news crossed that there are four candidates the administration is now considering to be the new director of the fbi replacing james comey. one of them is andrew mccabe, one is alice fisher. she's a very accomplished lawyer, there is some controversy from her time in the george bush administration from her connections to the prison at guantanamo and interrogations at guantanamo. another candidate is judge michael garcia. he's an appeals judge in new york state and a former federal prosecutors and ins commissioner from the george w. bush era. that's three. and then the fourth candidate who was reportedly being considered to run the fbi is senator john cornyn

to the fbi. comey,not have to fire he could have kept him there, and we could have had problems because of it. he did not have to, he is president. host: comey with a 10 year appointment, cut down to just over three and a half years after his firing. he was the seventh director of the fbi. brian from houston is next, independent. comey, i think director the way he acted last year, i felt like he was the one that was trying to be straightforward with the american people. finally put this in front of the american people, remove the blocking of all of the bureaucratic red tape. when loretta lynch met with out -- he do it would be horrible for her to come out and say it so he had to do it. the fact that he did not charge her with anything is what excess -- upset the republicans. was undermp investigation and his team was under investigation and he did not mention this at all last year during the election. host: when chuck grassley puts out a statement saying, the effectiveness of the fbi depends on p

we need the fbi to be accountable because we need the , fbi to be effective. its mission is to protect us from the most dangerous threats and since theion, director was last here the drumbeat of attacks on the united states from those directed or inspired by isis and other islamic terrorists has continued. for example, in june 2016, a terrorist killed 49 and wounded orlando frequented , by gay and lesbian community . it was the most deadly attack in the united states soil since 9/11. but long afterwards, in september a terrorist stabbed 10 at a mall in minneapolis and , another terrorist injured 31 after he detonated bombs in new jersey and new york city. and in november, a terrorist injured 13 after driving into students and teachers at ohio state university. our allies have been immuned either, as we read in the newspaper frequently. we recall the tragedy of july 16th when terrorists drove a truck through a crowd in france , killing over 80 people. so, we in the congress, need to make sure that the fbi has the tools it needs to prevent and investigate terror

now, long time observers of the fbi, former fbi agents, the new acting director of the fbi, who was a former deputy to james comey. they all say that the trump-russia investigations at the fbi will continue. they can't be stopped. nothing can slow down those investigators. nothing can intimidate them out of doing their work and that sounds awesome as a pep talk. of course, we don't know that for sure. right. we have never been in this position before. we don't know what's going to happen to those investigations. late tonight, the news cost that there are four candidates the administration is now considering to be the new director of the fbi replacing james comey. one is the acting director, andrew mccame kab. with him is alice fisher. she was under george w. bush. an acol plished lawyer. there will is controversy from her time in the george w. bush administration because of her connections to the prison at guantonomo and to interrogations at the prison at guantonomo. another candidate is reportedly judge michael garcia, an appeals judge in new york state. he is also a former federal p

also acting fbi director angela mccabe and former fbi director john pistole who's the president of anderson university in indiana. deputy white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders took questions on the james comey firing and said the president had lost confidence in mr. comey's ability to lead the law enforcement agency.

would the fbi director, or someone who should be the fbi director. >> or used to be the fbi director -- >> ever had a conversation like that with the president of the united states and assured him he was not under investigation yektly. >> there are guide lines in how investigations are to be handled with respect to the rest of the executive branch. those guidelines certainly do not allow the fbi director to go to the president and say you're clear. so i don't know what the president was basing that paragraph in his letter on, but if director comey said it, he would have been violating all sorts of norms and procedures in terms of how the fbi and the executive branch are to function. >> he should be fired if he actually said that. >> i think director comey deserves the right to have his own explanation of what that paragraph refers to, if it refers to anything at all. >> i think it's crucial that he does. because by the way, he could answer whether he said that without saying the president is or is not -- there are ways you can wordsmith to say they talked about it three specific time

we are trying to figure out why he's no longer the head of the fbi, we don't know who will lead the fbi and the vice president is saying that the safety of the american people as part of this decision. do you believe that we are safer without james comey? >> i'm not familiar with the context of that statement. i wouldn't want to comment on that without knowing more of what we was referring to. i was referring to what his decision would be to replace him in the process that went into that. >> jenna: do you think we were in some sort of danger with james comey leading fbi? >> not to my knowledge, but i don't have all the information. >> jenna: it was an interesting comment that stuck out to me. we'll get that sound and talk a little bit more about it. as we talked about before the break, there are some that are saying we are on the verge of a constitutional crisis, especially our friends of the other side of the aisle, what do you think about that? are we? >> i don't believe that. i think the process worked the way it was supposed to work. rob rosenstein was confirmed by 94 senators so we

yet, the fbi remained silent. in fact, the fbi summarily refused to acknowledge the investigation. it's still very unclear, and i hope director that you will clear this up, why the fbi's treatment of these two investigations was so dramatically different. with the clinton e-mail investigation it has been said that, quote, exceptional circumstances, end quote, including the high interest in the matter and the need to reassure the public required public comment from the fbi. however, i can't imagine how an unprecedented big and bold hacking interference in our election by the russian government did not also present exceptional circumstances. as i said at the beginning, we're in a unique time. a foreign adversary actively interfered with a presidential election. the fbi was investigation not just that interference but whether campaign officials associated with the president were connected to this interference. and the attorney general has recused himself from any involvement in this investigation. at the same time, the fbi must continue to work with its state and local law enforcement

,et's start with kathleen rice president trump fired the fbi director in the midst of an ongoing fbi investigation into the trunk campaign. this is a crisis. -- readvern tweets out tweets a scene intrigue, this is outrageous. james comey is leading trump russia probe and was fired without just cause. americans need to know what trump is hiding. tweeting, we need an independent investigation into the trump's campaign ties to russia. chuck schumer tweeting, if we don't get a special prosecutor, every american will rightfully suspect that the decision to fire james comey was part of a cover-up. we will give you your chance to weigh in both by twitter and facebook and right here on c-span via phone in about 10 minutes or so. we will open up phone lines and hear from you for your reaction to the firing tonight of fbi director james comey. ,e mentioned charles schumer chuck schumer holding a news conference within the last hour. let's see what he had to say. >> good evening, everybody. earlier this afternoon president trump called me and informed me he was firing director comey. i m presid

and by the way of course he has the right to remove an fbi director because the fbi director serves at the pleasure of the president. but what i would like to say as an american and to americans is i'm actually very confident that whatever happened heerd we have institutions that will make sure that we get to the bottom of what happened. and we have multiple investigations going on. it's a little dizzying sometimes to enkeven keep track. >> and why the confidence? it's good that you're confident. we need it. but why the confidence? if we know that the situation doesn't make sense, and this one paragraph in the letter alone from the president saying by the way thank you director comey for telling me three times that i'm not under investigation, can you believe that a conversation like that would ever happen between a sitting director of the fbi and a president of the united states? it breaches so many different notions of proper protocol. >> i have no idea, but you asked why am i confident. and i'm confident because we have the system of distributive power and we're seeing it right here

no one at fbi headquarters knew. that letter was delivered to the fbi headquarters for director comey about the time he was in la. but no one at the fbi saw this coming. certainly james comey didn't, none of his people did. they were all absolutely shocked and incredulous when they came out this afternoon. and they're trying to get their footing now. >> pete, do we know -- how much time went by when it was on tv, which is presubly how everyone at the fbi learned about . and when andrew went to the white house to meet with the president. at that point, you have presumably andrew mccabe at the fbi headquarters knowing he's now the highest ranking guy in the fbi, but no one has talked to him and he doesn't know who is running the fbi as of that moment. >> i don't know the timing. i don't know when he went to the white house. i know that when we first heard about this, which was -- i'm trying to think back now, it's been a while, 5:30 or so eastern time tonight. >> approaching about 5:45. >> that was before it was on any

he's out in los angeles with the fbi plane, and he's no longer the fbi director. so will he have the ability to use the plane to fly home? my guess is that will probably happen, but that's sort of the question right now. you know, he didn't know this was coming as pete williams pointed out. you know, this is something we know the justice department had been working on for at least a week. if you read the rod rosenstein letter, it's obviously pretty detailed. they had spent a fair amount of time on this and they had obviously been charged with coming up with these reasons. >> what do you mean by that? that to me seems the key here because it seems what the white house is communicating is that the white house was just going about its business and the attorney general is going about its business. but it's rod rosenstein, the widely respected career individual who made this determination. he passed it up to sessions would approved of it. he passed it up to the president who approved of it. yet it seems possible that the people sent the word that they wanted to find a

>> he did not fire the entire fbi. he fired the director of the fbi in any suggestion this is somehow to stop the fbi's investigation of the attempt by the russians to influence the elections last fall is really patently absurd. this is one person. it is the director. the investigation is going forward both at the fbi and in the senate intelligence committee in a bipartisan way. so i don't think there's any link at all. >> bret: this comes, obviously, senator, after the focus of sally yates, then acting attorney general who was fired, testifying about michael flynn and the warning she gave about the national security advisor that he might be compromised or could be blackmailed by the russians. the questions focused on the 18 days it took from that notice to him actually being fired. is that a concern of yours? >> well, of course i don't know what their conversations were between ms. yates and the white house counsel, nor do i know what president obama said to president trump about general flynn. but certainly if they r

i think the fbi carries forward. the press is obvious playing a big role here in watching what's happening here. i think congress will be aggressive. i think we have to take the decision and move forward. this is within the rights of the president, to appoint a new fbi director. it all comes down to who the new nominee will be. that person will have to very senior, very well-known, probably a former federal judge or former fbi agent, someone very senior and above reproach, to give confidence so that we can move on with the investigation and get to some semblance of closure. >> thank you. >>> we just have this coming in to us. the president, who we knew was going to be meeting right now with sergey lavrov, we are told now that cameras were allowed in. i'm going to ask my producer, is there any indication that he answered any shouted questions? we don't know yet. we haven't gotten anything written. it is possible. maybe we heard something from the president besides a handshake or the usual formal words that in a situat

and just because you change the head of the fbi doesn't mean that everybody else at the fbi just goes on vacation and we're no longer investigating things. i think all of the investigations continue. in fact, i would be shocked if someone at the fbi says tomorrow, oh, because the head is gone, we no longer investigate this thing. i don't know any of the details. if the facts come out that somebody committed a crime, that's a different story and we can address it. right now it's mostly political innuendo and sour dprgrapes ove the losing the investigation. >> not exactly, senator. the former fbi director did testify under oath that he launched a criminal countersbleblcounte counterintelligence investigation into allegations of collusion or cooperation between trump associates from the campaign and the russians as far back as last july. and this investigation, he just reiterated the other day, is continuing. it's not just a little bit of smoke. he says there's a formal, criminal jegs underway. >> but also he's apparently written three written notes to pr president trump saying he's not

fbi director comey was not at fbi headquarters. he was at the fbi field office in los angeles talking with some of the staff there. and he learned of his termination by actually watching and seeing it unfold on television. we understand that once he began seeing that on television he tried to make light of the situation. joking around. of course he abruptly left tha meeting. the way this went down because this has been unfolding over at least the past week. we know president trump has been talking about this, working with the justice department, and we do know perhaps as long ago as two weeks ago when deputy attorney general rod rosenstein confirmed, assumed his position on april 26th, perhaps this was in the work. this disconnect between the letter that or the memo that rod rosenstein wrote talking about mishandling of the hillary clinton investigation and trump referencing the russian investigation. >> the letter from trump, rod rosenstein memo, what we heard from sean spicer briefly in the press room the why now seems to be the

not good for the fbi or not. this is about the timing. if the white house was sincere. >> tucker: you wish they fired him at some other time. >> i was that wave taken action, another appropriate actions at the time. >> tucker: we had a ton of segments about the russian conspiracy and vladimir putin having dinner with ivanka or whatever that conspiracy suggests but tonight, the president of the united states just canned the fbi director and people are wondering if this is good or bad. they're confused, they're legitimately confused. so i'm just trying to get the perspective of a former dnc spokesman when i ask you do you think jim comey should still be running the fbi are not? at the very civil question. >> i am not a fan of jim coming. >> tucker: so you're glad he's fired. >> this move by the white house was a try to kill the russian investigation, nothing more. >> tucker: why was looking forward to seeing you tonight because a lot of our viewers don't live in washington and they don't understand why people here

we have independence of the fbi. we have ten year terms because we don't want presidents firing fbi directors out of political anger, out of fear of their own investigation. so you are making a neutral statement of why and how this happened, but it's wrong. >> also in terms of rosenstein and feeling bad for somebody, which you hear a lot about people working in this white house, you have to feel for xyz because this is not slave labor. people actually believe in what they are doing. >> but rosenstein could find the findings that he found. it's not like sean spicer every time he gets to the podium. >> but to your point about credibility though, this is where the corrosive untruth that we have heard from this president during the trump and search from the white house on a daily basis i would say with sean spicer, this is very problematic. when you do something like this, if you were going to take this extraordinary step, you need basically to have the public trust aspect of this job pretty nailed and this undermines it

who will run the fbi next? let's get to it. first on the fox news deck, seven days ago, the president's spokesman said president trump had full confidence in fbi director comey. yesterday the president fired him. today another spokesman said the president lost confidence in him and considered firing him from the day he was elected president. the change, according to the white house, president trump questioned comey's reasoning for staying at the fbi. >> i think one of the big catalysts that we saw was last week on wednesday director comey made a pretty starting revelation that he had essentially taken a stick of dynamite and thrown it into the department of justice by going around the chain of command when he decided to take steps without talking to the attorney general or the deputy attorney general when holding a press conference and telling them that he would not let them no what he was going to say. that is simply not allowed. >> shepard: james comey was leading the criminal investigation into russian meddling in the u.s. p

didn't happen at the fbi. when he was there would that be something that people would be -- would be thinking about when they would do this. >> there is a reason the saturday night was a a massacre archibald cox wasn't in the office. >> that becomes a matter of spuks i want to say a couple of things many democrats are scrambling. they recognize there is an opportunity to do something. there is we're now hearing that democrats are saying they're going to block any appointment of nibl to replace comey until there is a special prosecutor appointed. you're going to see a massive show of resistance from democrats both congressionally and otherwise people see there as a threat we've taken a step away from rule of law toward the rule of a small group of people i want to say as a result of that i feel vindicated because i said that donald trump had become president he has become president president nicken abuse of authority abuse of power. i feel vindicated >> can i say i play a little games sometimes i which is i ins

the fbi can -- the the presiden fire an fbi director. i would be sad to leave this mission and businesspeople. >> boston college as a leader on thinking and educating on these issues. it's a great place to have it. hope you will do it many more times. you are stuck with me for another six and a half years. i would love to be invited back again. >> bret: well, no. james comey, fbi director, fired today by president trump. he was in l.a. about ready to give a speech, a recruiting speech, talking to fbi agents and found out he was being fired watching a television inside the office. he got official word from the fbi here in washington. let's bring in the panel. james james rosen, a.b. stoddar, syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. let's start with the first panel about why, why he was fired. james. >> james comey was fired because, due to many sets of eyes, in the congress, within the ranks of the fbi they are in the great american public, and most notably at the white house and in the department of justice, james comey had become a law

>> how important was the fbi director's failure to go out of the fbi? >> i think that's probably one of the many factors. you can't deny somebody that that wasn't a problem. so i think that was just another one of the many reasons that he was no longer had the confidence of the president or the rest of the fbi. >> can we expect more firings from the justice department? >> not that i'm aware of today. >> going forward, does the president want the department of justice to shut down what he called the taxpayer funded charade investigated? >> he wants them to continue with whatever they see appropriate and see fit. just the same as he's encouraged the house and senate committees to continue any on going investigations. look, the bottom line is, any investigation that was happening on monday is still happening today. that hasn't changed. and, in fact, we encourage them to complete this investigation so we can put it behind us and we can continue to see exactly what we've been saying for nearly a year. there's no evidence of collusion between the trump campai

this is the scene at lax for the fbi, former fbi director. there for an event. but flew back to washington after learning about his firing from news reports. >> comey faced intense criticism over his handling of the hillary clinton e-mail probe. his termination comes as he led the investigation into possible ties between russia and trump campaign. we begin with lana zach and details. good morning. >> good morning, there are lots of details on this. many people are really questioning the optics of the timing particularly given that james comey was overseeing the russian inv and the potential of finding somebody in the trump administration who possibly could have clued olluded with r. >> reporter: james comey boarded a plane in los angeles deciding not to attend an fbi event after learning he had been fired as head of the fbi president trump writing it is essential we find leadership for the fbi that restores public trust and confidence. the white house says the president was influenced in part by wreck men daegs of his attorney general, jeff session whose had rec

was an fbi moment. the fbi was thrown out. i mean how do you explain that? he doesn't even understand the history of the country and the number of times the soviet union was attacking our elections. for 50 years. >> there's a great television series in the reagan years. they have our military secrets now they are in tour party stuff lou: why doesn't anybody say the chinese are coming? because they are here to. >> i've a chinese dr. who is my pride and joy. lou: is she an american citizen? i was talking about chinese nationals. >> she is special though. lou: she's a delightful young lady. let's turn to one other element in that's mccabe. with all of his connection to podesta and the dnc to the democratic party, to his wife the democratic candidate and the fbi didn't find it necessary for him to recuse himself legs are you kidding me? >> he should not recuse himself. lou: they have to have an ig report to know what is common sense and a conflict of interest. >> once we get this thing moving forward and as

the bottom line is we're going to have a few fbi director. the president takes responsibility for the decision to fire director comey. not a whole lot more there. the investigations are going forward. >> maria: the president could fire any director any time for any reason which is what jim comey wrote in the letter to his staff. but, could the president have done it differently? should he have done it differently? what should have been done better? >> i think maybe you could take a look at the process. it should have probably been a direct meeting either with the presidented and director comey or with the attorney general sessions and the directser. director finding out what's going on the screen behind him. that's unseenly. you could have improved the process. but the bottom line as we've seen over the last number of months, democrats and republicans and now the president of the united states all have decided or had decided that we needed a new director of the fbi. >> maria: this investigation into the potential collusion between the preside

he says the dismissal of an fbi director, the firing of an fbi director should not be taken lightly. he thinks we need to regain public and congressional trust if we have a director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges and never to repeat them. that is what's happened. this has nothing to do with the campaign from six months ago. this is to do with the performance the fbi director since the president has been in the white house. >> that was kellyanne conway. joining us is robby mook. good to see you. what do you make of the firing of the james comey? >> look, i have a big bone to pick with james comey. i thought the way he handled the investigation on secretary clinton's e-mails last year was poorly done. however, what happened today was wrong. it was wrong because no one in our country, particularly the president of the united states, should be above the law. what happened was we know that mr. comey was overseeing an investigation into the president. the president and his attorney general both of whom potentially are implicated in this investigation made a decisio

what happens to that formal fbi investigation? >> that fbi reports to robert mueller. he is now in charge of that investigation. leadership of the justice department has now been removed completely from handling any part of this. they won't be able to know what is going on and mueller will be able to appoint people under him, to help manage the investigation. they don't know where this will go. >> former fbi director robert mueller, new special counsel, investigating. let me read another sentence from the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein. quote. i determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint -- [ inaudible ] i'm going to laura jared at the justice department. laurie, you are there inside this briefing. give us more explanation on why this extraordinary decision was made. >> yeah, wolf, we were gathered very swiftly. here at department of justice with department staff, rod rosenstein, here i should mention, but they put out this briefing but they also tried to walk us through the history here explaining the exceptional

the fbi can -- the the presiden fire an fbi director. i would be sad to leave this mission and businesspeople. >> boston college as a leader on thinking and educating on these issues. it's a great place to have it. hope you will do it many more times. you are stuck with me for another six and a half years. i would love to be invited back again. >> bret: well, no. james comey, fbi director, fired today by president trump. he was in l.a. about ready to give a speech, a recruiting speech, talking to fbi agents and found out he was being fired watching a television inside the office. he got official word from the fbi here in washington. let's bring in the panel. james james rosen, a.b. stoddar, syndicated columnist charles krauthammer. let's start with the first panel about why, why he was fired. james. >> james comey was fired because, due to many sets of eyes, in the congress, within the ranks of the fbi they are in the great american public, and most notably at the white house and in the department of justice, james comey had become a law

we need the fbi to be accountable because we need the fbi to be effective. its mission is to protect us from the most dangerous threats facing our nation and as a director was last here -- since the director was last here, the drumbeat of a tttacks on the united states from those inspired by isis and other islamic terrorists has continued. for example, in june 2016, a terrorist killed 49 and wounded another 53 in orlando. frequented by gay and lesbian community. it was the most deadly attack in the united states soil since 9/11. but long afterwards, in september a terrorist stabbed ten at mall in minneapolis and another terrorist injured 31 after he detonated bombs in new jersey and new york city. and in november, a terrorist injured 13 after driving into students and teachers at ohio state university. our allies have been immuned either. we recall the tragedy of july 16th when terrorists drove a truck through a crowd in france killing over 80 people. so we in the congress need to make sure that the fbi has the tools it needs to prevent and investigate terro

one is the fbi. liz: that will continue. do you think the president should have fired james comey at beginning of the year? january 20 as he sat down? >> if he was going to, that's when he should have done it. mr. comey clearly overreached. democrats as you heard from chuck schumer were appalled by what mr. comey did to hillary clinton by saying on the one hand he didn't have enough evidence to indict her and raising questions about carelessness or recklessness with classified information and reopening the investigation, all of that was highly unusual, inappropriate and not in keeping with the fbi. liz: there's an argument that rod rosenstein is not in place, deputy ag, and he was sworn in april 26th, they needed him there in order to do the firing. what do you think about that argument? >> i think that is an argument, i don't happen to believe it. because the fbi and the justice department have an inspector general's investigation going into mr. comey's handling of the e-mail scandal involving hilla

the president fired the fbi director. it's simple. no, it's not simple, because that's the man that's overseeing the investigation into his campaign's ties with russia. >> thank you! >> it's totally complicated. what we have here now, brooke, is a white house in a crisis of credibility. and it is unbelievable to watch sarah huckabee sanders, for now the third day in a row, needing to adjust her story because the president did not send his team out with all the information, so therefore, they were in the position of lying to the american people about why president trump fired director comey. the entire justification on tuesday night when this happened, from sarah, from sean spicer, from kellyanne conway, was about rod rosenstein's letter. that was it. today, in the interview with nbc news, we learned that president trump, regardless of whatever the recommendation came from the deputy ag, was going to fire jim comey. so we were lied to by the communications staff. president trump in that interview today threw his own team under the bus

also acting fbi director angela mccabe and former fbi director john pistole who's the president of anderson university in indiana. deputy white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders took questions on the james comey firing and said the president had lost confidence in mr. comey's ability to lead the law enforcement agency. >> polite crowd. >> [inaudible] >> so i've heard. good afternoon, everybody. as most of you know, sean is on reserve duty for the rest of the week, so i will be briefing you today and in the following days. i have a few announcements at the top before i take your questions. i have an update at the tunnel collapse in washington state. the incident is moving from the emergency phase to the recovery phase. after extensive testing we remain confident that there has been no radiological release. personnel begin taking steps to stabilize and fill the hole over the partially collapsed tunnel last night. we expect efforts to be completed today. the site remains closed to nonessential personnel. dedicated experts on the ground are looking closely at the next steps that shou

the good news is that the fbi is an ongoing institution. the people who are there doing this investigation are going to continue the investigation no matter what happens to james comey. he's not a critical part of this investigation whereas with the watergate prosecution force there was just a small group of us that were the prosecutors. when archie cox was fired we thought the office itself might be disbanded. there is no question the fbi is not going to be disbanded. it's going to continue and the investigation will continue. in fact, i think there will abe lot of pressure to make that investigation go forward and do it in a thorough and professional way. secondly, james comey is no archibald cox. james comey, what he did, he should have been fired last july for basically usurping his power within the department of justice and making the statements he made with regard to the hillary clinton e-mail investigation. thirdly, i think this whole matter of watergate, people have to understand it wasn't just the break-in to the democratic headqua

james comey was not a member of the fbi when he headed the fbi. my guess is somebody in -- you're going to want a careerist because you're going to want somebody with no political background at all. they're going to have to be searching for a careerist here. >> absolutely, i agree. he's got a huge problem in his hands in terms of perception. and i just don't know why he is doing this at this time. and it's hard to figure out trump. it will be interesting to find out when he got the recommendation from sessions to remove comey. >> or did he ask for the recommendation? >> he asked for the recommendation. was it a visceral reaction after last week's testimony? if the recommendation came weeks ago, then it wasn't. so -- >> it's clear to me that the president has felt comfortable that he's gotten enough complaints that he believes he has enough cover here. that's the impression i've gotten when this topic has been talked about. >> it's very hard also. the attorney general who has recused himself from the russia investigation is now saying the person in

this guy's track record under the fbi -- they have great people in the fbi -- hasn't been not stellar. >> but again, jesse, when you look at that long letter from rosenstein, it had nothing to do with any of that. >> they could have made that case. it would have bolstered their case, made it bigger. >> it was tangential to the matter at hand. i think they thought they were i probably on firmer ground. particularly with this being about hillary clinton. for the trump administration to fire the fbi director for his handling of the hillary clinton issue? i mean, regardless of what democrats on capitol hill are saying, that puts you on pretty solid ground legally and morally as well when you are going to take somebody out. like we didn't like the way you handled the trump investigation, that would not have looked very good but if you are saying we did like the way he looked into the investigation of our opponent, that makes him look pretty good. >> all right, john roberts. thank you so much. we will be checking back with you perhaps. let's go now to our chief intelligence correspondent, c

director's position at the fbi. lou: he was restoring public confidence in the fbi. the first requisite was the firing of james comey to reach that goal. the second will be what? is there a readily available candidate in the opinion of the president to replace comey? >> by default the deputy director becomes the acting director. the president as he said in the letter tonight began the serving process and that was offered immediately. the goal is to act on the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to restore confidence in the fbi. lou: and as i go through all of the memoranda, the letter of the attorney general, the memorandum from rod rosenstein, it's all pertained to the handling by the director of the investigation of the clinton e-mails. why do we presume that this clears the way for a reopening of the iestigation into the hillary clinton e-mail by the fbi? >> it would be improper for me to comment on any investigations ongoing with respect to mrs. clinton in the e-mail. that's up