Sarah Huckabee Sanders filled in for Sean Spicer at today’s White House Press Briefing, and she faced a barrage of questions about why President Trump fired James Comey despite his old positive comments about the FBI director. 
 
 Sanders said that Trump had been losing faith in Comey since the day he was elected, and that the White House acted off of the performance review they got from deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. As Sanders took questions on the matter, NBC’s Hallie Jackson asked Sanders about why Spicer said just one week ago that the president had “full confidence” in the FBI director. 
 
 Sanders said that Comey’s news conferences about Hillary Clinton‘s email investigation upset the Department of Justice chain of command, and firing him was a recommended corrective measure submitted to Trump. Sanders faced a multitude of questions about why Trump lost faith in Comey when he praised him before and after the election concluded. 
 
 “I think the president’s position, one: he was a candidate for president, not the president. Those are two very different things,” Sanders said. “Once you take over leading the Department of Justice, that’s very different from being a candidate in a campaign. as you guys all know, there’s a very clear distinction between those two things.” 
 
 Sanders went on to characterize Comey’s actions as “atrocities” over how he circumvented the chain of command. She kept insisting that Trump had been thinking about relieving Comey for some time. 
 
 Watch above, via CNN. 
 
 [Image via screengrab] 
 
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– Something was missing from Sean Spicer's regular press briefing Wednesday: the White House press secretary himself. CNN reports Spicer is at the Pentagon this week fulfilling his US Navy Reserve duty by serving on the media staff of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Filling in for him this week is his deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The daughter of Mike Huckabee presided over her first press conference while filling in for Spicer last Friday, according to the Hill. President Trump is said to have been pleased with how it went. Sanders didn't have an easy time of it Wednesday, dealing with the fallout from the firing of James Comey in just her second-ever press conference. Mediaite reports she told reporters Trump had been losing faith in Comey since the election and had been considering firing him for a while. She says Trump's shift from supporting Comey to firing him came because Trump is now president and not a candidate. She also accused Comey of committing "atrocities" in his handling of the Clinton email situation. So how'd her performance go over? Maggie Haberman of the New York Times tweets Sanders "obfuscates same as Spicer" but "without making [it] deeply personal, petty, condescending."