FBI Director Chris Wray announces plans to resign

CNN
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FBI Director Chris Wray will resign at the end of the Biden administration, the agency said Wednesday, as it became clear he would be forced from office by President-elect Donald Trump.

Trump, who originally nominated Wray after firing the previous FBI director, had previously announced he would nominate Kash Patel for the role even though Wray still had three years left in his 10-year term. Patel has met with senators to drum up support for a confirmation vote next year.

Sources said Wray had been wrestling with whether or not to resign as Trump had expressed his desire to replace him and he wants to facilitate an orderly transition. But some in the FBI feared that his departure would normalize Trump’s penchant for replacing FBI directors he dislikes, since the position is supposed to be cross-agency and insulated from politics.

Wray took over as head of the agency after Trump fired director James Comey following an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election under his watch. Wray took office after Comey, whose FBI also investigated Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, left the office in May 2017.

As the new director, Wray was viewed by many lawmakers as a solid choice to steady a rocky ship, but he ultimately suffered a similar fate to his predecessor after he too oversaw an FBI that was investigating Trump, resulting in two separate federal cases against it was led by the former president.

Trump, in particular, was unhappy with the FBI’s court-authorized search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 as part of the investigation into his alleged misuse of classified documents.

Just this week, Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was not “thrilled” with Wray.

“He broke into my house,” Trump said. “He invaded Mar-a-Lago.”

Hear Kash Patel’s plans for the FBI

Wray made his announcement at an FBI town hall.

“After weeks of careful consideration, I have decided that the right thing for the board to do is to remain in office until the end of the current term in January and then step down. My goal is to keep the focus on our mission – the vital work you do every day on behalf of the American people,” Wray said, according to prepared remarks from the FBI. “In my view, this is the best way to avoid drawing the Bureau even deeper into the conflict, while strengthening the values ​​and principles that are so important to our work.”

“It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway – this isn’t easy for me. “I love this place, I love our mission and I love our people – but my focus is and will always be on us and doing what is right for the FBI,” Wray added.

“I am looking forward to a smooth transition. “I will be ready to serve the American people from day one,” Patel said in a statement Wednesday.

When Trump first picked Wray to lead the FBI in 2017, the two had a good relationship. At the time, Trump said Wray would “serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and a model of integrity.”

Wray tried to avoid turmoil with the White House and other lawmakers by giving extensive briefings on Capitol Hill and implementing office reforms in response to missteps in the Trump-Russia investigation.

Still, the relationship quickly deteriorated, and Trump’s contempt for Wray was expressed in public tweets and interviews in which he criticized the FBI director for his reluctance to make public documents related to the Russia investigation, as well as his testimony told Congress that Russia was working to interfere in the 2020 election and that there was no evidence of coordinated national voter fraud.

The divide became even more pronounced when Trump left the White House in 2021 and began attacking both Wray and the FBI for conducting investigations for political gain.

After his election victory last month, Trump vowed to get rid of Wray and replace him with Patel, a Trump loyalist and MAGA hotshot who has vowed to root out what he calls the “deep state” and refocus the law enforcement mission the agency.

In response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, Wray’s FBI also conducted the largest investigation in its long history – resulting in the arrests of over 1,500 people accused of violating the law that day.

In his address Wednesday, Wray emphasized that the FBI cannot change its “commitment to always do the right thing and in the right way.”

“That is the true strength of the FBI – the importance of our mission, the quality of our people and their commitment to service above self.” “It is an unshakable foundation that has stood the test of time,” Wray said, “and cannot simply be postponed.” And that – you, the men and women of the FBI – are the reason the FBI will continue to exist and thrive well into the future.”

CNN’s Hannah Rabinowitz contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional developments.