Former Justice official is tapped to lead FBI
Trump’s tweeted choice likely to face tough hearings
WASHINGTON — After a tumultuous month at the White House and a public search that often resembled a reality television show, President Donald Trump took to Twitter early Wednesday to announce a mainstream choice to replace fired FBI Director James Comey.
Trump’s surprise choice of Christopher Wray, who led the Justice Department’s criminal division from 2003 to 2005, caught House Speaker Paul Ryan and other senior Republicans off guard.
While at the Justice Department, Wray led headline-grabbing investigations of corporate fraud, including the prosecution of top officials at Enron Corp., the energy giant that went bust in 2001, and played a role in the department’s scramble to track terrorists in the panicked period after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
While in private practice, Wray represented embattled New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie during the state’s bridge lane-closure scandal.
In the weeks since Trump abruptly fired Comey on May 9, the president interviewed a slew of candidates to head an agency investigating Trump’s campaign and at least one of his top White House aides for dealings with Russia — probes that Trump has denounced as a “witch hunt.”
At least six candidates had withdrawn their names from consideration.
Wray is likely to face tough questions in his confirmation hearings as to whether he can maintain the FBI’s traditional independence in the Trump era. He also may be grilled by Democrats on whether he helped prepare or approve Justice Department memos for the George W. Bush administration that critics said sanctioned torture.
“His loyalty pledge must be to the Constitution and the country, not to Donald Trump,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a member of the Judiciary Committee.
Trump’s early morning tweet came at the start of two days of nationally televised Congressional hearings that will try to determine if Trump sought to pressure Comey and other top U.S. officials to get the FBI to back off the various Russia probes.
But his announcement was overshadowed when the Senate Intelligence Committee unexpectedly released a seven-page statement by Comey that vividly detailed his account of nine meetings and calls with Trump before he was fired.
Wray has most recently worked as a litigation partner at international law firm King & Spalding. He called it “a great honor” to be chosen to lead the FBI.
“I look forward to serving the American people with integrity as the leader of what I know firsthand to be an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country,” Wray said in a statement issued by the White House.
In the same statement, Trump described Wray as “an impeccably qualified individual” who would serve the nation “as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity.”
In a rare bit of bipartisanship, some of Trump’s toughest critics applauded the choice. “Considering some of the more political candidates who were being floated, and the president’s abysmal judgment, the country should breathe a sigh of relief that he chose a talented, credentialed, respected (and) deeply experienced individual like Wray,” said Norman Eisen, a former ethics czar to President Barack Obama who has been one of Trump’s harshest critics.
Eisen said he got to know Wray during the federal prosecution of officials from Enron Corp., the former Houston-based energy giant whose leaders were charged with fraud, money laundering, insider trading and other crimes after the $64 billion company collapsed in what was then the nation’s largest bankruptcy.
Trump’s use of a tweet to announce his FBI pick came days after several senior advisers had insisted reporters were paying too much attention to Trump’s tweets.
The choice of Wray surprised many lawmakers on Capitol Hill and even some in the White House.
In 2004, during a showdown between the Bush White House and the Justice Department over a secret surveillance program, Wray was among the officials who threatened to resign if the program was renewed without changes.
In his most high-profile case since leaving government, Wray represented Christie in “Bridgegate,” the case that helped sink his hopes of winning national office.
At one point last month, Joe Lieberman, a former U.S. senator from Connecticut, withdrew from consideration, as did Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.