# Where does it say POTUS can fire FBI director? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 15, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655 "2017-05-15T15:32:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/21 "2017-05-16T03:54:32Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Can the President fire any Federal Employee? Like say a Park Ranger? He can fire political appointees. I think regular hires would in most causes have to be fired for cause. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/22 "2017-05-16T04:16:05Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Can the President fire any Federal Employee? Like say a Park Ranger? Non-political federal employees are protected by the Civil Service system. They can not be fired by the president. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/23 "2017-05-16T10:58:25Z")
Couldn’t he take the same actions that the park ranger’s normal superiors could, though (including, with appropriate cause, firing them)? ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/24 "2017-05-16T11:07:10Z")
Yeah cause I remember some US civil servant held up the release of funds to Iran during the last days of the Carter Presidency (exchange of hostages) and Carter fired him. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/25 "2017-05-16T13:17:34Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Yeah cause I remember some US civil servant held up the release of funds to Iran during the last days of the Carter Presidency (exchange of hostages) and Carter fired him. Did Carter literally fire him, or was he fired by his boss for cause? It’s common to attribute to the president actions taken by his underlings. “Nixon bombed Cambodia” doesn’t mean that Nixon was piloting the aircraft dropping the bombs. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2017, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/26 "2017-05-16T13:34:29Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Can the President fire any Federal Employee? Like say a Park Ranger? In addition to career civil servants, the political appointees in certain agencies are not subject to being fired by POTUS because the agencies were designed by Congress to be independent. **Ravenman** touched on this earlier. [SCOTUS has used the shorthands “quasi-judicial” or “not purely executive” to describe the functions of those agencies](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/357/349/case.html), but Congress has guaranteed the terms of individuals in [agencies with no judicial functions too](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_government) (such as NASA). Typically they are called “independent agencies.” ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2017, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/27 "2017-05-17T22:32:00Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > In fact, the FBI’s website describes it as " limiting the FBI Director to a single term of no longer than 10 years". Unless they serve longer, like Robert Mueller did. There have been six FBI directors since Hoover (excluding acting and interim directors). Two were fired (Sessions and Comey) and one served 12 years, an extension that had to be approved by Congress. The other three (Kelley, Webster, and Freeh) resigned well before their 10-year term-limit was reached. ---
**Author:** ![Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Pilgrim\_Shadow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pilgrim_Shadow)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/28 "2017-05-18T05:27:10Z")
The President CAN fire the FBI director, but there better be a damned good reason and C-SPAN discussions about it first. To say, "I don’t like you for petty political grudges, so I’m going to punish a whole country with a pox! ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/29 "2017-05-18T12:01:07Z")
Whatever you do, don’t fire the non-Civil Service people in the WH travel office. That would be really, really [bad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_travel_office_controversy). ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/30 "2017-05-18T12:43:14Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > Unless they serve longer, like Robert Mueller did. The Senate had to approve his reappointment. It’s not clear what law allowed them to do so. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2017, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/31 "2017-05-18T17:25:45Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > The Senate had to approve his reappointment. It’s not clear what law allowed them to do so. [This law](https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/senate-bill/1103). > [@](#): > > Notwithstanding the second sentence of > subsection (b) of this section, the incumbent Director of the Federal > Bureau of Investigation on the date of enactment of this subsection > shall be eligible to be appointed to the new term of service provided > for by this subsection, by and with the advice and consent of the > Senate, and only for that new term of service. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/32 "2017-05-22T17:37:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > If it were illegal for the president to fire Comey, don’t you think we’d be hearing that from every Democratic Senator currently serving in Congress (and half the ones that aren’t)? If it was entirely legal then there wouldn’t be any uproar about it having happened, and it wouldn’t be the object of an obstruction of justice assertion. ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/33 "2017-05-22T17:41:12Z")
deleted ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/34 "2017-05-22T17:47:29Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > If it was entirely legal then there wouldn’t be any uproar about it having happened, and it wouldn’t be the object of an obstruction of justice assertion. The uproar over Comey’s firing is political, not criminal in nature. If there was obstruction of justice, it was (potentially) in Trump’s alleged requests that Comey discontinue the FBI investigation of Michael Flynn. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2017, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/35 "2017-05-22T19:47:35Z")
> [@zamboniracer](#): > > If it was entirely legal then there wouldn’t be any uproar about it having happened, and it wouldn’t be the object of an obstruction of justice assertion. It was perfectly legal for Nixon to ask Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald Cox, and could have fired Richardson (if he hadn’t resigned first) as well. All perfectly legal, all political suicide. ---
**Author:** ![TSBG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/77aa72/32.png) [@TSBG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TSBG)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/36 "2017-05-23T04:17:00Z")
There is some dispute over how independent “independent agencies” really are. They are clearly not part of the judicial or congressional branches, therefore they must be part of the executive, and the president, or so presidents assert, have untrammeled authority over the executive branch. So the EPA, for example, originally conceived of as an entity operating with congressional oversight but independent of the executive chain of command has gradually come to be more and more like a cabinet department. ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2017, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655/37 "2017-05-23T10:13:47Z")
I don’t even see how it is debatable that a president can fire appointees – it is inherently within his Executive power to do so. The post-Civil War statute was clearly unconstitutional. At the same time, firing an FBI director with the intent to obstruct justice is itself criminal conduct and it is a failure to faithfully execute the laws of the land – both are easily impeachable offenses for which the President can be tried, convicted, and forcibly removed, or forced to resign. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/where-does-it-say-potus-can-fire-fbi-director/786655.md?page=1)