This story by Politico claims Trump acted because he was angry over the Russia investigation and Comey’s role in it.
He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.
It goes on:
White House officials believed it would be a “win-win” because Republicans and Democrats alike have problems with the FBI director, one person briefed on their deliberations said.
Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI director James Comey has caused the dollar to slip on foreign exchange markets overnight. The dollar index, which investors use to track the greenback against six other currencies, slipped 0.2%.
That sent the yen higher which doused a spate of buying in Tokyo shares and left other Asia Pacific markets fairly flat.
The Dow Jones industrial average on Wall Street is expected to fall around 0.25% when it opens later today, according to the futures market.
Bart Wakabayashi, branch manager for State Street Bank and Trust in Tokyo, said: “The Comey news is being treated as a risk-off event, and the headlines were sparking the dollar’s move down.
“The ‘Trump trade’ lifted the dollar after the election, but now we have to see if he can deliver on all of his promises.”
In the months before his decision to dismiss Mr. Comey as head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mr. Trump grew unhappy that the media spotlight kept shining on the director. He viewed Mr. Comey as eager to step in front of TV cameras and questioned whether his expanding media profile was warping his view of the Russia investigation, the officials said. One White House aide, speaking after Mr. Comey’s dismissal, described him as a show horse.
Agence France-Presse has some details on the Trump/Lavrov meeting timed to take place tomorrow:
President Donald Trump will host Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov for talks at the White House on Wednesday, his highest-level encounter with a Russian official since taking office.
The two men will meet in the Oval Office at 10:30 am (1430 GMT), according to the White House.
The Russian foreign minister, making his first trip to Washington in four years, will also meet his counterpart Rex Tillerson.
Washington correspondent David Smith has written about how White House press staff have performed during the furore over Comey’s sacking.
The administration deployed Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders to sell the message that his dismissal was definitely, absolutely, totally not about Russia.
The controversy over Comey’s firing has reached Australia, where former ambassador to the US Kim Beazley said he believes Trump sacked Comey to shut down the investigation into his campaign’s links with Russia.
Beazley, who served as ambassador from 2010 to 2016, told a group in Brisbane he was not surprised by the move:
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 to appoint an FBI director to suppress the investigation.”
