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Trump to Comey: ‘you’re fired’

James Comey’s official FBI portrait is now one for the record books.

James Comey’s official FBI portrait is now one for the record books.

So let me get this straight: President Donald J. Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey for the way he revealed the Bureau’s investigation of the Hillary Clinton email scandal.

Uh-huh.

Not because Comey was investigating the Trump Administration’s relationship with the Russkies, no, not that. Trump just thought after months of demonizing Clinton and hearing that the FBI was investigating her again and, oops, found nothing that it was time for Comey to go because of a misuse of protocol. That Trump, so comme il faut.

Except that the timing seems a little off, doesn’t it? Particularly as it comes a day after former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before a Senate subcommittee that she had warned the White House that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had lied about his Russian connections.

Is it getting hot in here or what?

Yes, as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine pointed out to Judy Woodruff on the “PBS NewsHour,” there are four investigations into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin. But how confident are we that the FBI investigation into the Trump Administration will be expedited impartially with a new director appointed by, yes, the Trump Administration?

None of this passes the smell test.