Democrats should be applauding the firing of FBI Director James Comey rather than speculating it was a move to thwart the investigation into any possible collusion between the Russian government and officials of President Donald Trump's presidential campaign, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra said.
"You would think that the Democrats would applaud this because of what James Comey did last year on July 5 where he gave this rambling press conference that made absolutely no sense," Hoekstra said on Fox Business Network's "Making Money with Charles Payne."
"When he interjected himself back into the election, you know, 10 days before the election, on October 28th, the testimony that he gave last week that was confusing. The problem here is you have the director of the FBI became the story and part of the story rather than the law enforcement arbiter that he should have been," Hoekstra said.
Durbin, the Senate minority whip, tweeted out his comments soon after the late Tuesday announcement that Trump had accepted Attorney General Jeff Sessions' and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's recommendation to fire Comey.
Other Democrats called the firing "Nixonian," a reference to the "Saturday Night Massacre" on October 20, 1973, when President Richard Nixon, under probe for the Watergate scandal. Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than follow Nixon's order to fire Cox.
Sen. Susan Collins of Maine disputed that assertion on Fox News Channel's "Special Report."
"He did not fire the entire FBI," Collins said of Trump. "He fired the director of the FBI, and 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."
"It was time for a change," Hoekstra said. "Many of us thought it would happen immediately when Donald Trump came into office, but it's happened now, and it's appropriate.
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