Little- known FBI nominee Wray takes the spotlight
During a monthlong search for an FBI director, he was a late, little- known addition to a wide- ranging cast of contenders. And when the final decision was made, there was no traditional White House Rose Garden ceremony.
Rather, President Trump roused official Washington as he is accustomed to doing: issuing an early- morning tweet, this time, that ChristopherWray was his pick to succeed James Comey, the FBI director Trump abruptly fired weeks earlier in the midst of the Russia investigation.
YetWray’s nomination to lead the nation’s premier law enforcement agency would barely carry that morning’s news cycle before it was quickly lost in the wake of Comey’s dramatic testimony about the president’s efforts to derail the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
So on Wednesday, as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the 50- year- old former assistant attorney general’s confirmation hearing to serve as the eighth director of the FBI also will function as a public introduction to the nation.
He is sure to face questions about the ongoing Russia investigations, which are led by a special counsel, and how he would handle a president who has been accused of asking his previous FBI director for a pledge of loyalty.
“What people will learn very quickly is that there is nothing flashy about Chris,” said Chris Swecker, a former assistant FBI director who worked with Wray.
But Wray’s modest public profile, friends and associates said, should not be interpreted as a lack of experience or preparation for a job overseeing an agency with an expanding global reach.
And those who know him sayWray is equipped to fend off any possible uncomfortable entreaties from a still- new White House that has not always kept the traditional distance from the law enforcement community.
For nearly a decade, the Yale Law School graduate steadily climbed the ranks at the Justice Department, starting as an assistant U. S. attorney in Atlanta before departing in 2005 after serving as chief of the Criminal Division during the administration of President George W. Bush. Perhaps his most public recognition came as the head of the Justice task force that won convictions against executives at former Texas energy giant Enron.
Associates saidWray may be uniquely suited to bring calm to an institution that has been roiled by controversy.
“Because he’s been gone from Justice for so long, he’s kind of an unknown in the bureau. He’s going in with the blank slate. He’s got a lot of work ahead of him,” Swecker said.