In terms of timing, it turns out it would have been better to fire James Comey either right after the election on grounds that he broke the Justice Department’s guidelines by speaking repeatedly about the Hillary case, which might have had some bipartisan support, or to fire him later when the Russia investigation (presumably) settles down, but this what we said back in our February 6, 2017, issue:
The Justice Department’s inspector general announced an investigation of FBI director James Comey’s handling of the Clinton e-mail case. The action, coming a week before President Trump’s inauguration, is transparently an attempt to jam the new administration and conveniently plays into Democratic arguments that the election was thrown to Trump by Putin and Comey. If the question is whether the FBI director violated internal guidelines by repeatedly discussing the case publicly, the answer is Yes, a thousand times yes. He was put in an awkward position, though, as soon as Democrats nominated a candidate who was under FBI investigation, and especially after Attorney General Loretta Lynch cast a pall of doubt over the proceedings by secretly meeting with Bill Clinton. At this point, Comey has lost the trust of nearly everyone in Washington and undermined the credibility of the Bureau. Trump may not want to dismiss him immediately for fear of validating the Democratic narrative about the elections — in which case he should wait a decent interval.