This is old hat for Donald Trump.
"You're Fired!."
Only one problem.
When the real estate tycoon turned reality TV host put pen to paper and delivered that trademark phrase, he wasn't dumping another hopeful from "The Apprentice."
He was dismissing the director of the FBI.
James Comey, the man who just a few weeks ago testified that the agency was reviewing potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russians is out in a move that is stirring flashbacks of Richard Nixon's infamous 'Saturday Night Massacre.'
Nixon was so incensed at Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox, who was demanding he turn over the tapes the president had made of conversations in the Oval Office that he fired him.
Actually, first he asked both Attorney General Elliot Richardson to do it. Richardson resigned instead of following his boss's order, as did his assistant, William Ruckelshaus.
Today, 44 years later, history is repeating itself.
Trump late Tuesday afternoon fired Comey, under the guise that he mishandled the investigation into Hillary Clinton emails. The president would have us believe - now - that Comey was somehow unfair to the woman who ran against him.
I assume Trump actually managed to keep a straight face when he did this.
Trump likely will learn that, much like Nixon, this kind of rash action does not make the problem go away. The pressure only increased on Nixon, eventually resulting him resigning from the nation's top office.
Trump might have shed an FBI boss, but he likely just bought himself a special prosecutor.
Cries went up in Washington for an independent counsel to pick up what Comey started poking around the Russian scandal.
I had to suppress a chuckle when I saw many Democrats rushing to the microphones to cry foul at the president's move.
Yes, these are the same people who have been complaining about Comey and the way he has handled the Clinton email saga for months. Hillary Clinton herself just last week fingered the FBI boss as having his fingerprints all over her Electoral College loss to Trump.
That is not to say anyone can justify what Trump did yesterday.
The Donald ran for office as a different kind of candidate, who vowed to be a different kind of president.
He's been good to his word.
That is not necessarily a good thing. Drain the swamp? Trump is up to his waist in it.
More than four decades ago, a president thought he saw a way to wiggle out of a tight spot by firing a special prosecutor.
Donald Trump, reality TV star, is now starring in the sequel.
Comments