Sasse says America in midst of a "crisis of public trust" after Comey firing
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Nebraska, said that the U.S. is "in the midst of a civilization-warping crisis of public trust," when asked about James Comey's firing.
"And we need to talk honestly about our institutions that need to be restored and need to have the ability for people in five and eight and ten years to trust these institutions," Sasse said on Sunday's broadcast of "Face the Nation."
Sasse, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said that there has been "a lot of politicization going on at the Department of Justice over the last five to eight, nine years."
"We should want the Department of Justice to be very, very insulated from partisan politics. We have three branches of government. Not one, not 17, right?," said Schiff.
When questioned over the circumstances surrounding Comey's dismissal, Sasse said that he was "disappointed" in the timing of Comey's firing.
"Lots of people can think that Director Comey, who was a fundamentally honorable man, but people can think that he executed his job in all sorts of clunky and imperfect ways," Sasse said. "That's a different question than whether or not he should have been fired the way he was last week. And I've been critical of that decision."
Members of the Department of Justice were scrambling Friday and Saturday to interview potential candidates to fill the position of FBI director following Comey's ouster.
The FBI Agents Association, representing thousands of current and retired FBI agents, favors former House Intelligence Committee chairman and former FBI special agent Mike Rogers. It urged Mr. Trump to pick Rogers to lead the bureau.
"It is essential that the next FBI director understand the details of how agents do their important work," FBIAA president Thomas F. O'Connor said in a news release Saturday. "Mike Rogers' background as a special agent, veteran of the armed forces and former member of Congress sets him apart as someone capable of confronting the wide array of challenges facing our help ensure that the bureau remains the world's premiere law enforcement agency."
Last week, during the Senate's hearing on Russian interference, Sasse asked the former director point blank how likely it was that the Senate IT system had been targeted by foreign adversaries.
Comey responded to Sasse's line of questioning saying, "I would estimate it's certainty."
