"You're Fired!"

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

   The president has so far fired three high profile law enforcement officials who had been leading investigations to his activities before and since his move to the White House. In each case, he had been profuse in his praise of each, but resorted to pretext to cover up any real motive for dismissing them.
   The latest victim of the president's wrath is FBI Director James Comey. He joins Sally Yates, who had been acting attorney general, and Preet Bharara, who had been the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Each had been leading investigations into the president's activities. And all had been highly praised by the president, until word of the investigations became public. Once the news broke, they were promptly fired.
   One can only speculate as to the real motives. The reality, however, is that the president now has shown a habit of firing those who lead investigations into his business or political activities and the ethics of how they interact, as well as possible criminal or constitutional issues.
  Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway insisted that comments made during the presidential election campaign were no longer relevant, and should be forgotten. This prompted CNN interviewer Anderson Cooper to ask whether this referred to "a fictional character who longer exists." Conway's response was to say such a question was "unkind."
   But whether campaign talk should or can be ignored is an issue already decided by several federal judges. What was said in public cannot simply be forgotten. Or as lawyers are fond of saying, "You can't unring the bell."
   And thanks to the wonders of modern technology, speeches, comments and actions are preserved in computer memory banks, and the video can be rerun many, many times, to compare what is said today with what was said in the past.