Trump planned to sack FBI chief ‘since the day he was elected’

Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe appears before the US Senate select committee on intelligence in Washington, DC, on May 11, 2017. Michael Reynolds / EPA

WASHINGTON // President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he would have fired FBI director James Comey even without the recommendation from the US justice department, contradicting earlier White House accounts.

Mr Trump also reiterated that Mr Comey had told him on three occasions that he personally was not under investigation.

“I was going to fire Comey,” Mr Trump said in an interview with NBC.

The White House and vice president Mike Pence have said the president acted on the recommendation of the US attorney general Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein.

“Regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump’s comments came amid increased criticism of the White House’s evolving explanation of the firing, which has questions over the fate of the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election meddling and possible ties to the Trump campaign deeply uncertain.

“Frankly, he’d been considering letting director Comey go since the day he was elected,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Thursday, a sharply different explanation from the day before, when officials put the emphasis on new justice department complaints about Mr Comey.

In testimony to the senate on Thursday, the acting FBI director Andrew McCabe contradicted earlier White House statements about why Mr Comey was dismissed, particularly the assertion that he had lost the confidence of the rank and file of the FBI.

“That is not accurate,” McCabe said. “I can tell you also that director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day.”

In the NBC interview, Mr Trump repeated his assertion that Mr Comey had assured him he was not under investigation. “He said it once at dinner, and then he said it twice during phone calls.”

Mr McCabe told senators it was not standard FBI practice to tell someone whether they were under investigation or not.

The investigation into Russian interference in the election campaign has shadowed Mr Trump from the outset of his presidency, though he has denied any ties to Russia or knowledge of any campaign coordination with Moscow.

Mr McCabe called the Russia investigation “highly significant” – another contradiction of the White House portrayal – and assured senators it would not be affected by Mr Comey’s sacking it. He promised he would tolerate no interference from the White House and would not provide the administration with updates on its progress.

“You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing,” he declared. He said there has been no interference so far.

Days before he was fired, Mr Comey requested more resources to pursue his investigation, US officials have said, fuelling concerns that Trump was trying to undermine a probe that could threaten his presidency. Mr McCabe said he was not aware of any such request and said the Russia investigation is adequately resourced.

It was unclear whether word of the Comey request, said to have been put to Mr Rosenstein, ever made its way to Mr Trump. But the revelation intensified the pressure on the White House from both political parties to explain the motives behind the removal of the FBI chief.

Defending the firing, White House officials have said Mr Trump’s confidence in Mr Comey had been eroding for months. They suggested he was persuaded to take the step by justice department officials and a scathing memo, written by Mr Rosenstein, criticising the FBI director’s role in an investigation into the use of a private email server by Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump’s Democratic rival in the presidential election, during her time as secretary of state.

* Associated Press