Lawmakers urge Trump to avoid picking a partisan for FBI job

"The memo was part of a paper trail Mr Comey created documenting what he perceived as the President's improper efforts to influence an ongoing investigation", the Times reports.

Of the people who have an opinion on President Donald Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey, a majority disapprove, with not quite half (46%) agreeing with the statement that Comey was sacked to slow the FBI investigation into the election.

If so, could the White House please provide copies of the president's conversations with Comey; conversations about the hiring or firing of Russia-friendly former general Michael Flynn and the meeting this week with Russia's ambassador and foreign minister?

Trump finally conceded to Lester Holt in an interview on NBC News last week that his decision to fire Comey was a unilateral one that he had made even before an expression of concern about Comey in a three-page memo from Rosenstein. The FBI has been investigating alleged Russian meddling in the USA election and possible ties between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

In this May 8, 2017, file photo, then-FBI Director James Comey speaks to the Anti-Defamation League National Leadership Summit in Washington.

The associate also confirmed an account from the Times that Trump vented about media leaks during his conversation with Comey, and that the president expressed support for seeing reporters in prison.

Chaffetz's letter comes just hours after the disclosure that Comey drafted a memo that detailed how Trump had asked him to shut down the Flynn investigation.

Trump's firing of Comey, the man in charge of an investigation into possible collusion between 2016 election campaign associates and the Russian government, has outraged many lawmakers, including some Republicans.

January 6, 2017: Comey is among a group of four top USA intelligence officials who brief the president-elect on their conclusions that Russian Federation meddled in the presidential election on his behalf.

Additionally, 30 percent of those surveyed said they had a less favorable view of Trump because he fired Comey.

At the moment, Congressional Republicans - at least the bulk of them - seem content to go along with Trump. "So you don't need a special prosecutor", Graham said on "Meet the Press". Yes, it's bad if the president secretly tapes his own conversations.

Sessions has faced questions over whether his involvement in Comey's firing violates his pledge to recuse himself from investigations into Russian interference in the election. While the FBI is investigating disclosures of classified information, other issues that Trump and the administration wanted to be investigated did not involve classified information, and Federal Bureau of Investigation officials have resisted demands that they pursue such issues. But we know that he's leaving on his first big overseas trip, so how likely is that to come?

"Tweets like that are actually really hard to parse", Oliver confessed, "because they are both a borderline obstruction of justice, and the meaningless rantings of a confused old idiot".

"If I thought there was inappropriate behavior by the president, sure", Graham said.

The former agent said that acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who interviewed for the top job over the weekend, had "zero chance".

"Reporting on classified information is a bedrock right of journalists, and so I guess it's only natural, given his past statements, that Trump wants to take that away", he said.