President Trump said Wednesday he fired FBI Director James B. Comey because “he was not doing a good job.”
“He wasn’t doing a good job. Very simply,” Mr. Trump said. “He was not doing a good job.”
Mr. Trump spoke to reporters in a hastily arranged Oval Office media photo-op appearance with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. His comments came after a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Asked if the Comey controversy affected Mr. Trump’s meeting with the Russian envoy, the president said, “Not at all.”
Mr. Trump did not respond to a question over whether a new FBI director will be in charge of the agency’s investigation of possible ties between Trump campaign officials and the Russians.
It was the president’s first public comment since he dismissed Mr. Comey Tuesday evening on the recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
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Mr. Rosenstein faulted Mr. Comey’s handling of the investigation last year into Democrat Hillary Clinton’s private email server, a probe that ended without criminal charges.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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