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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — President Trump’s decision on Tuesday to fire James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director who had been leading an investigation into possible ties between his campaign and Russia, came in a bombshell announcement that left Washington reeling. But it had been a long time coming. Whatever the stated reasons, Mr. Comey’s ouster was the abrupt culmination of a toxic dynamic between him and Mr. Trump that had unfolded slowly over more than a year. The relationship began to sour during the presidential campaign over Mr. Comey’s exoneration of Hillary Clinton in the F.B.I.’s investigation of her email practices, which ran counter to Mr. Trump’s “Lock her up!” message to his supporters. It grew still more bitter after Mr. Trump became president and Mr. Comey declined to back up his accusation that President Barack Obama had spied on him. And it reached a nadir when the F.B.I. director confirmed in sworn testimony in Congress that the bureau was investigating ties between Mr. Trump’s campaign team and Russia. Administration aides said on Tuesday that senior officials at the White House and the Justice Department had been charged with building a case to justify Mr. Comey’s firing since at least last week, and that Attorney General Jeff Sessions had been tasked with coming up with reasons to fire him. That rationale, set forth in a pair of letters from Mr. Sessions and Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, was that Mr. Comey had mishandled the Clinton emails ... Link to the full article to read more