President Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey via letter delivered to FBI headquarters while Comey was giving a speech in Los Angeles. The termination letter cited Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's memo criticizing Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation. However, Trump later told NBC's Lester Holt that he was thinking of "this Russia thing" when he decided to fire Comey. The firing triggered immediate comparisons to the Watergate-era "Saturday Night Massacre" and directly led to the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller.