May 10, 2017 10:10 AM UTC

BREAKING: FBI Director Comey Fired by Trump

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• by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Washington Post:

The startling development comes as Comey was leading a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether associates of Trump may have coordinated with Russia to interfere with the U.S. presidential election last year. It wasn’t immediately clear how Comey’s ouster will affect the Russia probe, but Democrats said they were concerned that his ouster could derail the investigation.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Comey’s deputy, Andrew McCabe, would be the acting director of the FBI. As a presidential candidate, Trump explicitly criticized Comey and McCabe for their roles in the Clinton probe while at other points praising Comey for his “guts.”

And as Denver7’s Blair Miller reports, crickets from Colorado Republicans:

Colorado’s Republican members of Congress sat silent Tuesday after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, who had been in charge of the investigation into whether Russia colluded with administration and campaign members to influence the U.S. election.

The state’s Democrats all called for an independent investigator or commission to be appointed to continue the investigation, which Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from, then was part of the decision-making team that worked to fire Comey…

Sen. Michael Bennet (D) said that the timing of Comey’s firing “raises many questions.”

“The next FBI director must be independent and relentless in seeking the truth,” Bennet added. “This underscores the need for an independent special prosecutor to investigate Russian involvement in the 2016 election and connections to the Trump campaign and Administration.”

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UPDATE: Politico:

President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey—a move that comes as the FBI is probing contacts between Trump’s campaign aides and Russian officials ahead of last year’s presidential election.

“The president has accepted the recommendation of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general regarding the dismissal of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Tuesday afternoon…

Comey, who was appointed FBI director by former President Barack Obama in 2013 to a 10-year term, has come under fire for his handling of both the Trump campaign probe and the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

WH and DOJ had been working on firing Comey since at least last week. Sessions had been working to come up with reasons.

— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) May 9, 2017

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A huge developing story out of Washington this afternoon–FBI Director James Comey has been fired by President Donald Trump:

Stand by for updates.