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Ill-timed firing

President Donald Trump may be right when he says that FBI Director James Comey had to be fired to start restoring the nation’s confidence in its premier crime-fighting organization. But the reasons and the timing of the abrupt firing on Tuesday suggest Trump is less concerned about the reason given for the firing — Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation — than the FBI’s continuing investigation into Russia’s meddling with the U.S. presidential election and the possibility members of the Trump campaign were involved.

If Trump thinks everyone will agree that this was a good move after things have “calmed down,” he has forgotten long-lived outrage over Hillary Clinton’s actions that fueled his “Crooked Hillary” campaign. Democrats especially are not going to let the Russian hacking of Clinton campaign staffs’ e-mails be forgotten. If the next FBI director doesn’t follow through on the investigation, Trump will be accused of a coverup.

Trump’s firing of Comey forces the issue of a special independent investigator to take over the Russia probe. It may be the only way to get to the truth of what Russia did in the 2016 presidential election and who helped them.

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