The timing of Comey's request is not clear-cut evidence that his firing was related to the Russian Federation investigation.
Top U.S. Republicans rallied to Trump's defense, but some called the action troubling. The former NY police commissioner held Treasury posts in the Clinton administration, and was mentioned as a possible Federal Bureau of Investigation chief in under presidents Clinton and Obama.
Trump shrugged off the political firestorm he created with Comey's dismissal as he met with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office on Wednesday.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had pondered dumping Comey as soon as he took office on January 20, but chose to stick with him. At the Capitol, Vice President Mike Pence repeated the assertion that Trump had been advised he isn't under investigation, again with no detail.
MoveOn.org petitions calling for an independent investigation and/or a special prosecutor have more than 900,000 signatures, including more than 500,000 on this petition calling for a House investigation into Trump/Russia.
U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., has said he is reviewing legislation that would establish such a commission. "Donald Trump just fired the one person in America who was leading the most thorough and long-lasting investigation of Donald Trump".
During his meeting with Kissinger, Trump did not answer a reporter's question about whether or not Comey's replacement would take over the investigation into the Trump campaign's ties with Russian Federation, the Hill reported.
In the Comey firing, Trump says he was merely following the advice of the Justice Department, which concluded Comey mishandled the Hillary Clinton investigation by publicly discussing it.
"She loves this department".
For their part, Democrats voiced outrage over the abrupt firing, suggesting Trump was trying to impede the FBI's probe into his own campaign's ties with Russian Federation.
Lavrov on Comey: Was he fired? You're kidding
Lavrov and Tillerson have said relations between Moscow and Russian Federation are worse than they have been in decades. Still, the overlap between the FBI Russia investigation and Mr Trump's diplomatic efforts could not be brushed aside.
"Comey lost the confidence of nearly everyone in Washington, Republican and Democrat alike". He added, "Dems have been complaining for months & months about Dir".
Comey was sacked on Tuesday. He doubled down on calls for a special prosecutor after Tuesday's news broke.
But a final straw, said Sanders, landed in a Monday meeting between the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein, in which the two Justice officials expressed deep concern about Comey's leadership.
'Were those investigations getting too close to home for the president?' Schumer asked his fellow senators.
He said he'd prefer to see the three current investigations - one in the House, another in the Senate and a third by the FBI - completed before there is talk of a special prosecutor.
"Most importantly, he lost the confidence of the president", Ryan told host Bret Baier.
Delaware's US House Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester in her statement said "rather than building confidence and providing Congress and the American people with answers, we are left only with more questions as a result of the actions of the Trump Administration".
"The reason I'm here today is not that he was sacked but because it was so clearly because Trump was afraid of something", Davis said. Their meeting was the highest-level public contact between Trump and Putin's government since Trump took office.
After the news broke that Comey had been fired, Menendez took to Twitter. "You're kidding. You're kidding".
Trump has already cost the Senate time. And Senate and House Democrats do not have the majority needed to create a special Congressional committee that would have subpoena power and wide leverage to pursue leads in the White House.
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