Ousted FBI Director James Comey’s father speaks to the Bergen County Record:

“I never was crazy about Trump,” J. Brien Comey, 86, a Republican and a former borough councilman, said in an interview. “I’m convinced that he’s nuts. I thought he belonged in an institution. He was crazy before he became president. Now he’s really crazy.”

Andrew McCarthy for the National Review: “Comey is one of us. Lavrov and Kislyak are two of them.”

“There is no excuse for a president of the United States to run down an American for the consumption of our Russian adversaries – particularly an American who is fighting against Russia’s operations against our country. It is indefensible. If President Obama had a meeting with Iranian diplomats at which he insulted, say, former ambassador John Bolton in an apparent effort to ingratiate himself with our enemies, we would be ballistic – and justifiably so.”

“The problem with this incident is not that it makes more likely the possibility that Trump colluded with Russia. The problem is that it suggests that Trump isn’t distinguishing friend from foe, Americans from America’s enemies. I don’t care about the ‘Russia collusion’ narrative. I’m talking about a president who must know there is a more destructive narrative about his fitness, for which he cannot seem to stop providing ammunition.”

Jonathan Swan: “Most WH officials I’ve spoken to privately this week are closer to being numb than panicked. Those who went through the campaign with Trump are numb to the crises and thought so many times before that this would be the one to break Trump. They’ve been wrong so many times before — the vast majority of Trump campaign staff, no matter their public posturing, thought Clinton would crush him.”

“They view their boss as completely undisciplined and self-destructive. They’re exasperated by him … They’re sick and tired of the media feeding frenzy. But even in their most frustrated moments, they’ll admit that Trump has got some special resilience that they can’t begin to understand. A coat of protection that almost seems supernatural to them.”

“The Trump administration is exploring whether it can use an obscure ethics rule to undermine the special counsel investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign team and Russia,” Reuters reports.

“Within hours of Mueller’s appointment on Wednesday, the White House began reviewing the Code of Federal Regulations, which restricts newly hired government lawyers from investigating their prior law firm’s clients for one year after their hiring, the sources said. An executive order signed by Trump in January extended that period to two years.”

“Mueller’s former law firm, WilmerHale, represents Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who met with a Russian bank executive in December, and the president’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is a subject of a federal investigation.”

“White House lawyers have begun researching impeachment procedures in an effort to prepare for what officials still believe is a distant possibility that President Trump could have to fend off attempts to remove him from office,” two people briefed on the discussions tell CNN.

“Investigators into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections are now also probing whether White House officials have engaged in a cover-up, according to members of Congress who were briefed Friday by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein,” McClatchy reports.

“That avenue of investigation was added in recent weeks after assertions by former FBI Director James Comey that President Donald Trump had tried to dissuade him from pressing an investigation into the actions of Trump’s first national security adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, members of Congress said, though it was not clear whom that part of the probe might target.”

“The law enforcement investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign has identified a current White House official as a significant person of interest, showing that the probe is reaching into the highest levels of government,” the Washington Post reports.

“The revelation comes as the investigation also appears to be entering a more overtly active phase… The intensity of the probe is expected to accelerate in the coming weeks.”

“The sources emphasized that investigators remain keenly interested in people who previously wielded influence in the Trump campaign and administration but are no longer part of it, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort.”