How Trump's years of feuding with FBI Director Christopher Wray led to Wray's resignation
WASHINGTON − Seven years before President-elect Donald Trump pushed FBI Director Christopher Wray into announcing Wednesday he will step down at the end President Biden’s term, Trump appointed Wray and called him “a model of integrity.” In the years since, Trump soured on the nation’s top law enforcement official for overseeing investigations into his allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and retaining classified documents after he left office in January 2021.
Trump had already nominated Kash Patel, an ardent Trump supporter, to be Wray’s replacement, thus signaling his intent to fire Wray upon taking office.
Here’s a list of key events in the fraught relationship between Trump and Wray that began in 2017 with Wray’s nomination to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
June 7, 2017: Trump nominates Wray
After firing FBI Director James Comey for his role in investigating Trump’s potential role in Russian interference in the 2016 election, then-President Trump nominates Wray as head of the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, in charge of 35,000 people including more than 10,000 “special agents” across the U.S. and around the world. Trump described Wray as a “model of integrity” and an “impeccably qualified individual” for the role of investigating crimes and foreign influence in the United States without fear or favor.
Wray had began his career clerking for prominent conservative U.S. Appeals Court Judge J. Michael Luttig and served as a prosecutor in the Justice Department. He was appointed assistant attorney general, charge of the department’s criminal division, by President George W. Bush. Prior to being named FBI director, he was a partner at the law firm King & Spaulding. After receiving Senate confirmation, Wray began his 10-year term at the FBI, a unique protection created by Congress specifically to insulate the FBI director position from political influence, especially from the White House.
December 7, 2017: Wray defends the FBI
Four months after Wray is sworn in as the eighth director of the FBI, he publicly defends the agency from Trump’s criticism of its role in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election to help Trump defeat Democratic rival Hillary Clinton. After Trump tweeted that the bureau’s reputation was “in Tatters – worst in history!” and called its impartiality into question, Wray told the House Judiciary Committee that, “The FBI I see are tens of thousands of men and woman who are hard charging people of integrity.”
