Decision on FBI head likely next week

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he could announce his pick for FBI director by late next week, before he leaves on his first foreign trip since taking office.

“Even that is possible,” he told reporters when asked whether he could announce his nominee by Friday, when he is scheduled to leave for the Mideast and Europe. The president spoke while flying to Lynchburg, Virginia, where he was giving the commencement address at Liberty University.

Four candidates to be the bureau’s director were in line Saturday for the first interviews with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, at Justice Department headquarters.

The Trump administration is looking to fill the job, which requires Senate confirmation, after Trump abruptly fired James Comey on Tuesday.

The first candidate to arrive was Alice Fisher, a high-ranking Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration. She left after about an hour and a half inside the building and declined to comment to reporters.

Among those also expected to be coming were acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, Michael J. Director Garcia, an associate judge on New York’s highest court, and GOP Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Senate leader and a former state attorney general. That is according to two people familiar with the search process who were not authorized to publicly discuss the deliberations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

They are among nearly a dozen candidates Trump is considering, a group that includes several lawmakers, attorneys and law enforcement officials.

Fisher formerly served as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. She faced resistance from Democrats during her confirmation over her alleged participation in discussions about detention policies at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba.