Comey firing prompts leading Dems to do 180-degree turn

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Top Democrats who just months ago called for FBI Director James Comey to be fired are now blasting President Trump for doing just that.

Just last week, Hillary Clinton blamed the FBI director for costing her the presidency by briefly reopening the investigation into her handling of classified emails. But after Trump sacked Comey Tuesday night, Clinton's former campaign manager pronounced the move "terrifying."

"Twilight zone," Robby Mook wrote on Twitter. "I was as disappointed and frustrated as anyone at how the email investigation was handled. But this terrifies me."

" ... this terrifies me."

— Robby Mook, former Clinton campaign manager

Just hours before Comey was canned, former Clinton cmpaign chairman John Podesta tweeted: "The American public is getting mildly nauseous listening to Jim Comey."

Then, after Comey was fired he tweetd: "@realDonaldTrump Didn't you know you're supposed to wait til Saturday night to massacre people investigating you?"

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who got a pre-announcement heads-up from the president that the decision had been made, called Comey's firing "a big mistake."

"Earlier this afternoon President Trump called me and informed me he was firing Director Comey," Schumer told reporters. "I told the president, 'Mr. President with all due respect you are making a big mistake.'"

But just last November, after Trump was elected president, Schumer sang a different tune.

“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” Schumer said of the FBI director.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN last year that "Maybe [Comey's] not in the right job.”

“I think that we have to just get through this election and just see what the casualties are along the way,” she said.

After Trump sent Comey packing, the California Democrat took a decidedly different position.

“The President’s sudden and brazen firing of the FBI Director raises the ghosts of some of the worst Executive Branch abuses," Pelosi said in a statment.

Other Democrats acknowledged their past remarks about Comey and qualified their criticism of his firing as more about the timing than the substance. Comey recently acknowledged that the bureau is currently investigating Russian involvement in the election, and Democrats charged that firing him was done to short-circuit that probe.

"Donald Trump's decision to fire him now, in the midst of an investigation into Trump associates and their ties to Russia, is outrageous," Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said. "There can be no question that a fully independent special counsel must be appointed to lead this investigation."