With reasoning that doesn't pass the smell test, the White House has announced that Donald Trump has fired the Director of the FBI James Comey.  The announcement took practically everyone in Washington by surprise, including several senior members of the Trump administration who weren't in the loop.

With Comey out on the road at an event on the other side of the country in California, Trump sent his personal bodyguard to hand deliver a letter to the FBI.

"While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau," Trump wrote.  "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Trump's letter states.

The firing seems to hinge on Comey's mishandling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, in particular saying Comey was wrong to have announced last July that the Justice Department's investigation of Clinton's emails was being closed.

But that makes no sense.  If Trump were truly concerned about that, this would have been handled in January when the new administration took office - not four months into the new administration, and not nine months after the fact.  It gives the impression of a decision in search of a rationale.

What did Comey do lately to warrant being fired for something that happened last year under a different administration?  Well, two months ago Comey let it be known that the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia to sway the US election.

Another disturbing facet is that Trump claims he is acting on the advice of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who claimed to have recused himself from the investigation into Trump and his Kremlin pals.

Perhaps no reaction summed up the shock of Trump's flagrant abuse of power as well as Jeffrey Toobin, columnist for the New Yorker and CNN Legal Analyst: 

"This is the kind of thing that goes on in non-democracies.  That when there is an investigation that reaches near the president of the United States, or the leader of a non-democracy, they fire the people who are in charge of the investigation.  I have not seen anything like this since October 20, 1973 when president Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the Watergate Special Prosecutor.  This is something that is not within the American political tradition.  That firing led indirectly but certainly to the resignation of President Nixon.  And this is very much in this tradition.  This is not Normal.  This is not politics as usual.  This is something that is completely outside how the American law is supposed to work."