IT doesn’t take a sleuth to assume the motive behind American President Donald Trump’s sensational sacking of FBI Director James Comey, Kim Beazley says.
The former Australian Ambassador to the US described Mr Trump’s move as “of enormous significance”, as Washington reels from the news.
“I don’t quite know what the public reasons are associated with it but certainly the inquiry the FBI is currently conducting into the relationship of Trump’s campaign team, maybe Trump himself, and the Russians is such that it may have reached the point where somebody would want to be able appoint an FBI director to suppress the investigation,” Mr Beazley told a PwC breakfast in Brisbane this morning.
“That (investigation) carries the biggest threat of impeachment for Trump. You don’t have to be too much of a sleuth or a suspicious fellow to assume that there is a linkage here.”
“The president has accepted the recommendation of the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General regarding the dismissal of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said in a statement.
Mr Comey was leading the agency charged with investigating the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia and that country’s apparent interference with the election.
That fact has prompted outage from Democrats and some Washington observers.
Former federal prosecutor and respected legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin launched an extraordinary attack on the move during an appearance on CNN, describing it as “a grotesque abuse of power”.
“This is the kind of thing that goes on in non-democracies, that when there’s an investigation that reaches near … the leader they fire the people who are in charge,” Mr Toobin said.
In a letter, Mr Trump told Mr Comey: “You are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.
It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.”
The decision was pinned on the FBI Director overstating the number of Clinton emails top aide Huma Abedin forwarded to her husband, during his testimony last week to a Senate committee, according to several reports.
MORE HERE: Donald Trump fires FBI Director James Comey after Hillary Clinton emails | Perth Now
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