President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James Comey. In a statement, Trump says Comey's firing "will mark a new beginning" for the FBI.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly considering a sweeping shake-up of his top staff at the urging of longtime friends and outside advisers.
Trump is weighing a "huge reboot" that could take out chief of staff Reince Priebus, chief strategist Stephen Bannon, counsel Don McGahn and press secretary Sean Spicer, White House sources told Axios.
"He's frustrated, and angry at everyone," an unidentified source said.
"The advice he's getting is to go big - that he has nothing to lose. The question now is how big and how bold. I'm not sure he knows the answer to that yet."
Who will be left standing? White House adviser Hope Hicks, Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and senior adviser Stephen Miller. Photo / AP
Sources also said Trump feels he is not being well-served by some members of his cabinet.
New York Magazine reports the US leader has shrunk his inner circle to his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and longtime aides including spokeswoman Hope Hicks.
Three officials told AP that Bannon has been shut-out of major decisions following conflicts with Kushner.
Conversations about the reboot intensified this week over the spectacular fallout from Mr Trump's sacking of FBI Director James Comey, Axios reports.
President Trump says he could announce a replacement for Comey by Friday.
The list of candidates to lead the FBI has expanded as US Attorney General Jeff Sessions interviewed eight potential replacements for the ousted chief - including a woman who investigated Bill and Hillary Clinton in the 1990s.
Alice Fisher, who served in the Justice Department under George W. Bush, was interviewed for an hour and a half on Saturday morning, reports The New York Post.
Fisher, who would become the FBI's first female director if nominated and confirmed, was an assistant AG in the department's Criminal Division and served as a counsel to the Senate special committee that investigated the Clintons' Whitewater scandal.
Her competition for the job includes Adam Lee, the special agent in charge of the FBI's Richmond office and Michael Garcia, the former Manhattan US lawyer whose investigation brought down then-Governor Eliot Spitzer in a 2008 prostitution scandal.
Also interviewed were Senator John Cornyn, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, federal Judge Henry E. Hudson, former Bush adviser Frances Townsend and former House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers.
A nomination could be announced by Friday - the day Trump departs for Saudi Arabia on his first foreign trip.
"We can make a fast decision," Trump said on Saturday morning. "I think the process is going to go quickly."
The hunt for a new FBI director comes as the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll reveals just 29 per cent of Americans approve of Comey's sacking.
Among those who say they have read, seen or heard "a lot" about the firing, 53 per cent say they disapprove, versus 33 per cent who approve.
According to the poll, conducted from May 11-13, Trump's job-approval rating stands at 39 per cent, one point lower than last month's NBC/WSJ survey.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Photo / AP
TRUMP MULLING EMBASSY MOVE
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Trump is considering how moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem would affect the Mideast peace process.
Tillerson gave the most detailed description yet of Trump's criteria for making the decision.
He told NBC's Meet the Press that Trump is listening carefully to both Israelis and Palestinians about whether moving the embassy would be helpful for peace talks or a distraction.
As a candidate, Trump vowed to move the embassy. But since taking office he's said he's studying the issue before making a final decision.
Israel considers Jerusalem its capital and has urged the US for years to move its embassy there from Tel Aviv. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem for the capital of a future independent state.
Stephen Bannon's ongoing conflict with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has seen him lose favour with the president. Photo / Getty
NO 'CLEAN SLATE' BETWEEN US AND RUSSIA
Relations between the United States and Russia, at their lowest level since the Cold War, will not restart "with a clean slate," Tillerson said yesterday.
The former ExxonMobil CEO, who was decorated in 2013 by Russian President Vladimir Putin, had said previously that the relationship between the two nuclear powers had hit its lowest point since the Soviet collapse in 1991.
His Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov - whom Trump hosted at the White House on Wednesday - said the same.
Speaking on NBC on Sunday, Tillerson reiterated that relations had fallen to "an all-time low point since the end of the Cold War, with a very low level of trust." "It is not healthy for the world," he said. "It's certainly not healthy for us, for the American people, our national security interest and otherwise, for this relationship to remain at this low level."
However, "whether we can improve it or not remains to be seen," he added. Although Tillerson said he is "committed" to improving relations - which have been especially tense since 2012 thanks to differences over Syria and, later, Russia's invasion of Ukraine - he expressed deep scepticism about the prospects for doing so.
He ruled out relaunching relations with a "clean slate," similar to the attempt at a "reset" by former president Barack Obama and his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, in 2009.
