Steve Bannon, the ousted White House chief strategist, told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired on Sunday that President Donald Trump made a huge mistake when he fired James Comey as the director of the FBI.
Bannon would not confirm reports that he opposed firing Comey while he was still on the White House payroll, but he argued that the FBI is an institution in Washington, D.C., that cannot be changed by changing its leader.
“I am a big believer that this city, it’s a city of institutions, not individuals. And I think you have to look at it as institutions. The FBI is the institution. The speaker of the house is an institution. The majority leader is an institution,” he said on “60 Minutes.” “The Justice Department is an institution. They have an institutional logic of how they proceed and what they’re going to do. And you can’t get caught up in individuals.”
Bannon noted that Comey’s firing led to special counsel Robert Mueller.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt that if James Comey had not been fired, we would not have a special counsel,” he told CBS’ Charlie Rose. “We would not have the Mueller investigation in the breadth that clearly Mr. Mueller is going.”
Rose asked Bannon if he considered the firing of Comey to be the “biggest mistake in political history.” Bannon replied that it’s the biggest mistake in “modern political history.”
