Trump just fired James Comey as FBI director.

First let’s be clear, this isn’t the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973.

Comey is not Archibald Cox, he is was a rather clueless narcissist who ignored standard law enforcement procedures because he wanted to ingratiate himself to Republicans.

I have mixed emotions about this: It’s like seeing your mother in law drive off a cliff in your brand new car.

I anticipate that whoever replaces Comey will be a complete political hack, but that’s about as inevitable as gravity.

There won’t be any meaningful political repercussions though, Republicans control both the House and the Senate.:

President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey on Tuesday, at the recommendation of senior Justice Department officials who said he had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly and in doing so damaged the credibility of the FBI and the Justice Department.

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.”

“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,” press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters in the White House briefing room. The firing is effective “immediately,” he said.