In this Q&A with the Stanford Lawyer magazine editor, Stanford Law School Professor Pamela S. Karlan discusses the legal implications of the May 9 firing of FBI Director James Comey.

President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey this week. The firing seems to have been a break with tradition. Can you talk about that—the structure of power—and why the FBI Director has been/should be independent of presidential and Congressional influence, and is only rarely fired?

J. Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI for nearly a half-century, and accumulated a degree of power that many observers considered problematic. So in the 1970s, as part of a crime control act, Congress provided that the director of the FBI would be appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to a single ten-year term, which by definition means that Congress expects directors to serve under at least two presidents. During the discussions leading up to the adoption of this provision, Senator Robert Byrd stated that one of Congress’s goals was to prevent “the transition of the FBI into a political police force or into a politicized organization in any fashion.” So while James Comey is not the first director to be fired – President Clinton fired William Sessions after findings that he had engaged in improper use of government funds for personal items – the directorship, unlike other high-level positions in the Justice Department, is not a job that normally changes hands upon a change in administrations.