Trump casts new doubt over future of FBI boss Wray
Claim comes amid moves to scrap Flynn guilty plea
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump has voiced uncertainty over the future of FBI director Christopher Wray.
The undermining of the director comes only a day after the Justice Department moved to throw out the guilty plea of Mr Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
The president’s comments highlight the distrust between the White House and some senior law enforcement officials in the wake of an investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russia’s 2016 election interference and the Trump campaign.
“It’s disappointing,” Mr Trump said when asked about Mr Wray’s role in the ongoing reviews of the FBI’s handling of the Russia investigation. “Let’s see what happens with him. Look, the jury’s still out.”
Mr Trump faulted the FBI director for “skirting” the debate surrounding the Russia investigation, although the agency and the Justice Department have insisted it has co-operated fully with officials reviewing the case.
Mr Trump nominated Mr Wray in 2017 to serve a 10-year term as FBI director, but yesterday, sought to shift responsibility for his appointment to former deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, a frequent target of Mr Trump’s ire.
In a statement earlier this week, the FBI went further than it has in the past to criticise previous officials’ conduct, saying Mr Wray “remains firmly committed to addressing the failures under prior FBI leadership while maintaining the foundational principles of rigour, objectivity, accountability, and ownership in fulfilling the Bureau’s mission to protect the American people and defend the Constitution.”
The president’s comments suggest the FBI’s statement did not assuage his concerns. But he heaped praise on attorney general William Barr, who tasked Jeff Jensen, the US attorney from St Louis, to review Flynn’s case. Mr Jensen concluded Flynn’s guilty plea to lying to the FBI should be dismissed because agents did not have a valid reason to be investigating him. Mr Barr agreed.
“These are dirty politicians and dirty cops and some horrible people, and hopefully they’re going to pay a price some day in the not too distant future,” Mr Trump said.
He said Americans “owe a lot to attorney general Barr,” and said his top law enforcement official was “a man of unbelievable credibility and courage”.
Had Mr Barr been attorney general when the special counsel investigation began, Mr Trump said, “he would have stopped it immediately”.
“He’s going to go down in the history books,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump suggested he and Mr Barr had discussed the Flynn matter at some point, though the president said he took a hands-off approach.
“I told Bill Barr, ‘you handle it’,” Mr Trump said. “I would be absolutely entitled, in theory, the chief law enforcement officer, in theory, but I said you know what, I want Bill Barr to handle it.”
Mr Trump suggested he would be vindicated further in the coming days. “A lot of things are going to be told over the next couple of weeks,” the president said.
On Thursday, the Justice Department moved to drop charges against Flynn, alarming current and former law enforcement officials as well as Democrats who said the justice system was caving in to political pressure from the administration.
In a court document, the department said “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information... the government has concluded that [Flynn’s interview by the FBI in January 2017] was untethered to, and unjustified by, the FBI’s counter-intelligence investigation into Mr Flynn,” and that it was “conducted without any legitimate investigative basis”.
Mr Trump forced out Flynn in February 2017, and when he pleaded guilty, the president tweeted: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the vice-president and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies.
“It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!” (© Washington Post)