'Comey dismissal won't hinder FBI's Trump-Russia investigation'

The dismissal of FBI chief James Comey continues to make headlines. There have been claims, counter-claims and even thinly-veiled threats. So, where is this fresh controversy in US politics headed? Is this going to be the beginning of a constitutional crisis or President Donald Trump’s Russiagate as some put it? Will it put Trump’s presidency in jeopardy? Press TV has talked to Brian Becker, with the ANSWER Coalition, and Scott Bennett, a former US army psychological warfare officer, to discuss the reasons which forced Trump to dismiss former President Barack Obama’s FBI director.

Brian Becker thinks there are two reasons behind the US president’s decision to fire Comey: First, to block the FBI’s investigation into any possible collusion between Trump and Russia; and second, to punish Comey for his disagreement with Trump’s allegations of being wiretapped by the Obama administration.

The current US president is a very immature political leader who is playing into his enemies’ hands by his impulsive decisions, Becker said, adding that Trump never trusted Comey because he saw him as an independent operator with his own agenda.

“No evidence has been provided so far that the Russians were actually colluding with Trump and I think this has made Trump obviously angry. But it won’t stop. The (FBI's) Russian investigation or the so-called Russian investigation would go forward and it would intensify,” he underlined.

However, the other panelist on the show, , Scott Bennett said that the US president has made the right decision to fire Comey because he was playing in the Democrats' court which could derail the FBI’s investigations around “Hillary Clinton’s crimes.”

“There is absolutely no evidence of any Russian collusion in the election. It didn’t happen,” Bennett said. “The Democrats are on the corner, screaming and crying like exploited children getting their toys away but they are obsessed. They are pathologically unbalanced and continuing and trying to beat that cat into life by claiming that the Russians” affected the election results.

He opined that that Comey had assisted Clinton during his tenure by turning a blind eye to her offenses and therefore it is natural for Trump to want to replace him with an unbiased person.

“James Comey has been fired because he colluded and aided Hillary Clinton in her email scandal and terror financing,” the analyst noted. “That is why he [Trump] fired James Comey. Because he was going to continue to derail the investigation. He was going to point it into an area that there is no substance. Now Trump can launch an investigation with the inspector general at the FBI, with the inspector general at the Department of Justice and can do a joined renewed request to Congress to reexamine this matter and they can prosecute Comey for crimes that Clinton committed.”

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