Points for admitting a mistake.
No, I don't remember every politician calling for Comey to be fired the day before Trump did it. Do you have links supporting that? Because the only ones I remember wanting him gone were those threatened by the Flynn investigation.
Trump might well have been able to testify he did it because Comey wouldn't state he wasn't under investigation (but doesn't that look like OOJ-like in itself?) except for the problem that he also publically stated on television that he did it because of the Russia investigation to Lester Holt, and that he did it after Comey didn't drop the investigation after being privately urged to, and that he cast about fishing for justifications and statements from his AG/DAG (including an as-yet unreleased statement that we don't have, but Mueller does that was rejected due to not looking good).
So what we know is that it really looks like it was OOJ to a lot of people, and that Mueller is looking in to things like private statements Trump made to the AG, DAG, Comey himself, others in his cabinet. It comes down to intent. If Trump did it because he wanted the investigation gone, it was obstruction. That is what Mueller is investigating. And I think we all know that's at least part of why he did it. So we'll find out how much Mueller can prove.
If you're an intellectually honest individual, you shouldn't be yelling about how Trump had every right to fire Comey, because that isn't the question. The question is why he did it.
With a two minute search, here is just a few.
Nancy, chuck, Podesta and Reid.
Before the election, Nancy
Pelosi had hinted that Hillary would fire FBI Director James Comey.
“Maybe he’s not in the right job,” the House Dem leader had coyly suggested. “I think that we have to just get through this election and just see what the casualties are along the way.”
The FBI Director was at risk of becoming a “casualty” over his handling of the Hillary investigation.
There was no outrage and no front page editorials at the
New York Times and the
Washington Post. No comparisons to Watergate or calls for an investigation. A top Dem suggesting that the FBI Director would have to leave because he was investigating another top Dem was just “good government.”
And there would have been none of the hypocritical media outcry if the election had gone another way and Comey were being told to pack his bags by President Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager had also hinted that Comey might have to step down because of his bias against Hillary. Now he claims that Trump’s firing of Comey “terrifies” him.
After Comey’s letter, Schumer had declared, “I do not have confidence in him any longer.” That is what top government officials say before demanding someone’s job. But now Schumer is outraged. “If we don’t get a special prosecutor, every American will rightfully suspect that the decision to fire #Comey was part of a cover-up,” he tweeted.
Were the Dem calls for Comey to resign also part of a cover-up?
Harry Reid had called on Comey to resign. Congressman Steve Cohen even wrote an op-ed titled, “For the Sake of the FBI, Comey Should Resign.” Now he touts Comey as a recipient for the Profiles in Courage award and accuses Trump of firing him because Comey “threatened his presidency.”
Again, the possibility of proving intent on this is, let's just say, very difficult.