The news that President Donald Trump had fired him came so unexpectedly, that FBI director James Comey laughed it away thinking someone was playing a prank on him.

Comey, was addressing a group of FBI employees in Los Angeles when a television in the background flashed the news that he has been fired, which he considered it as a prank, New York Times reported.

His staff reacted by asking Comey to step into a nearby office. Comey stopped addressing the group and proceeded to shake hands with the employees he had been speaking to, following which he stepped into a side office, where it was confirmed that he had been fired.

The news of Comey's dismissal by President Trump stunned Washington, as he was the man who had been leading the investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

However, the White House announced that James Comey has been fired as director of the FBI over his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.

The Richard Nixon Presidential Lobrary and Museum used Twitter to issue a rebuke to the idea that Comey's firing was "Nixonian". Despite Nixon's firing of the Watergate special prosecutor in October 1973 and the resignations of the attorney general and deputy attorney general in the "Saturday Night massacre", he never fired the FBI director, the library said.