Editorial: Trump manages to dig himself an even deeper hole on the Comey firing

Not that it wasn’t obvious already, but President Trump has now confirmed that the White House’s original explanation for why FBI Director James B. Comey was fired was false — a cover story.

On Tuesday, when Comey’s dismissal was announced, the administration suggested that Trump was acting on the recommendation of Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions, who in turn was relying on a memo from the recently appointed Deputy Atty. Gen. Rod Rosenstein, which faulted Comey for the way he handled the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server for official business when she was secretary of State.

But in an interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt aired on Thursday, Trump said — surprise! — that he had decided to fire Comey before Rosenstein weighed in with his criticism.

“I was going to fire regardless of [that] recommendation.” Trump said. Then he added, “In fact when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election they should have won.”

Was this a Freudian slip? Was Trump admitting that he fired Comey to stop the FBI investigation into whether there was collusion between his campaign and Russian operatives who meddled in last year’s election? Trump says no; later in the interview he claimed that he wanted the investigation “to be absolutely done properly” and “speeded up.”

Still, Trump’s linking of the firing of Comey and the Russian probe underlines the importance of ensuring a thorough and credible investigation. That means it must be supervised by a special counsel — to whom the now-compromised Rosenstein should immediately turn over supervision of the probe — and by a new FBI director who must be a law enforcement professional of impeccable reputation with no ties to Trump. The candidate nominated to succeed Comey must be someone who will be supported by Democratic and Republican senators alike.

The firing of Comey and its aftermath have exhibited all of the worst aspects of the Trump presidency, including the president’s fragile ego (he seems jealous of the attention received by Comey, whom he called a “grandstander”), his disregard for the facts (he told Holt that “the FBI has been in turmoil”) and his tendency toward thuggishness. After the New York Times reported that Trump had demanded Comey’s “loyalty” – an account that apparently comes from Comey and which the White House disputes — Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”

A humbler, less self-centered president might have been chastened by the outraged reaction to the dismissal of an FBI director who was leading an investigation of that president’s own campaign. Trump, obviously, is not. That makes it vital that others — the deputy attorney general, Congress and the press — act to control the damage to the country and the Constitution.

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