President Trump on Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey, the White House announced. Here is a timeline of his career:
- 1993: Comey served as the lead prosecutor in United States v. John Gambino et al., a six-month mafia racketeering and murder trial in the Southern District of New York.
- 1996 to 2001: Comey served as Managing Assistant U.S. Attorney in charge of the Richmond Division of the United States Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia. While in this role, Comey handled the Khobar Towers terrorist bombing case, in which 19 Airmen were killed in the 1996 attack.
- January 2002 to October 2003: Comey served as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he oversaw numerous terrorism cases and supervised prosecutions of executives of WorldCom, Adelphia, and Imclone on fraud and securities-related charges. He also led the prosecution of Martha Stewart, who was indicted on the charges of securities fraud, obstruction of justice, and lying to an FBI agent.
- October 3, 2003: President George W. Bush nominated Comey to serve as Deputy Attorney General, he then was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on December 9, 2003.
- August 2005: Comey leaves the Department of Justice to serve as general counsel and senior vice president at defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
- June 2010: Comey joins Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut-based investment fund, as its general counsel.
- June 2013: President Obama nominates Comey to be the next director of the FBI, replacing Robert Mueller.
- July 29, 2013: Comey confirmed by the Senate for a full ten-year term running the FBI.
- September 3, 2013: Comey is sworn in as FBI Director.
- July 5, 2016: Comey announced the FBI’s recommendation that the DOJ file no criminal charges relating to the Hillary Clinton email controversy regarding her use of a private email server, but said she was “extremely careless” in her handling of highly classified information.
- October 28, 2016: Less than two weeks before the presidential election, Comey announced in a letter to Congress the FBI learned of the existence of emails that appeared to be related to the investigation of Clinton’s private email server and the agency would investigate.
- November 6, 2016: Comey wrote in a second letter to Congress that, “Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July.”
- Jan. 6, 2017: Comey is among a group of four top U.S. intelligence officials who briefed then-President-elect Donald Trump on their conclusions that Russia meddled in the presidential election on his behalf. Trump told The Associated Press by telephone after the meeting that he “learned a lot” but declined to say whether he accepted their conclusion about Russia.
- March 8, 2017: During a cybersecurity conference at Boston College, Comey said he planned to serve his entire 10-year term, quipping, “You’re stuck with me for another 6 1/2 years.”
- March 20, 2017: Comey testifies to Congress that the FBI has been investigating possible links between Trump associates and Russian officials since July, the same month he held an unusual news conference to discuss the investigation into Clinton. Comey had previously refused to acknowledge the parallel Trump investigation, and his disclosure enrages Democrats who already blamed Comey for costing Clinton the presidency.
- March 20, 2017: Comey testifies at the same hearing that the FBI and Justice Department have no information to substantiate Trump’s unsubstantiated claim on Twitter that former President Obama wiretapped him before the election.
- May 3, 2017: Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey insists that he was consistent in his handling of the separate investigations into Clinton and Trump. Comey also said it made him feel “mildly nauseous” to think his actions in October might have influenced the election outcome. But he told senators: “I can’t consider for a second whose political futures will be affected and in what way. We have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and then do it.”
- May 9, 2017: Comey sends Congress a letter correcting his prior sworn testimony regarding emails handled by longtime Clinton associate Huma Abedin. Comey had told Congress that Abedin had sent “hundreds and thousands” of emails to her husband’s laptop, including some with classified information. The two-page, follow-up letter said that, in fact, only “a small number” of the thousands of emails found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most had simply been backed up from electronic devices.
- May 9, 2017: President Donald Trump fires Comey.
