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Here are all the reasons the White House has given for firing FBI director James Comey

Trump's explanation keeps shifting.

The Trump administration's rhetoric around the president's decision to fire FBI director James Comey keeps changing, and it has led to one of the most tumultuous weeks in Trump's young presidency so far.

  • First, the White House said Trump fired Comey because the attorney general and deputy attorney general recommended it.
  • Later, the president said he had been considering firing Comey for a while, and Rosenstein's recommendation sealed the deal.
  • After that, the president said he had already decided to fire Comey and that he was going to do it regardless of whether or not Rosenstein recommended it.

Comey was heading up an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia when he was fired, and the timing of Trump's decision led many to speculate over whether Trump fired Comey because he was upset about the Russia investigation.

The White House initially said the investigation was not a factor in Trump's decision. On Tuesday, the White House's official explanation was that Trump had acted based on the recommendation of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and attorney general Jeff Sessions. In a memo to Sessions, Rosenstein criticized Comey's handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was Secretary of State. Rosenstein did not specifically recommend firing Comey in his memo.

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Sessions forwarded Rosenstein's memo to Trump and recommended that he remove Comey from his role. "Based on my evaluation, and for the reasons expressed by the Deputy Attorney General in the attached memorandum, I have concluded that a fresh start is needed at the leadership of the FBI," Sessions' letter said.

The timeline directly contradicted the White House's assertion that the president had acted solely based on the recommendations of Rosenstein and Sessions.

On Thursday, Trump told NBC News' Lester Holt during an interview that he was going to fire Comey regardless of the DOJ's recommendations. He added that the Russia investigation had been a factor in his decision.

When Holt asked Trump whether he'd asked Rosenstein for his recommendation the day before firing Comey, Trump replied: "What I did was, I was going to fire. My decision."

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"You’d made the decision before they came into the room?" Holt asked.

"I was going to fire Comey. There’s no good time to do it," Trump said.

"In your letter, you said, 'I accept their recommendation,'" Holt said.

"Oh, I was going to fire, regardless of recommendation," Trump said. "He made a recommendation, he’s highly respected — very good guy, very smart guy. And the Democrats like him, Republicans like him. He made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey."

Later in the interview, Trump pointed to the Russia probe as a catalyst for his decision.

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