Comey tells agents Trump plans to keep him on as FBI director
WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey told his top agents from around the country that he had been asked by President Donald Trump to stay on the job running the federal government’s top law enforcement agenc y, according to people familiar with the matter.
A decision to retain Comey would spare the president another potentially bruising confifirmation battle. It also would keep Comey at the center of the FBI’s investigation into several Trump associates and their potential ties with the Russian government.
Retaining Comey could also help calm the bureau’s workforce, which has been rattled after a tumultuous few months in which the FBI and the director himself were sharply criticized for moves that many felt inflfluenced the outcome of the presidential election.
Dur i n g t h e c a mpai g n , Trump harshly criticized the FBI and Justice Department for not bringing crimi nal c har ge s a g a i ns t Hi l - lary Clinton in connection with her use of a personal email server. After Trump was elected in November, he said in a nationally televised interview that he had not made up his mind about whether he would ask Comey to resign.
When Comey and the president- elect met in Trump Tower for the fifirst time earlier this month for an intell i ge n c e b r i e f i n g , Tr u mp told the FBI director that he hoped he would remain in his position, according to people briefed on the matter. And Trump’s aides have made it clear to Comey that the president does not plan to ask him to leave, these people said.
Last Wednesday, during a weekly conference call, Comey relayed the news to his senior employees, who are known as special agents in charge. Under federal law, the
director is appointed to a 10-year-term, intended to overlap more than one administration as part of post-Watergate overhauls created to give the director independence and insulate the job from politics. The president, however, can fifire the director. Comey, a former senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, was a pp o i n t e d by P r e s i d e n t Barack Obama in 2013.
Those who described the plans for the FBI director spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identifified discussing confifidential conversations between Trump, his aides and Comey.
Representatives for the FBI and White House declined to comment.
On Jan. 15, Trump’s chief of s t a f f, Rei nce Pr i e bus, appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” program and signaled that Trump had no immediate desire to get rid of Comey.
Comey will have to manage an increasingly diffifficult relationship with Trump and his White House, as the FBI is leading an investigation into ties between Trump’s associates — including his former c ampaign manager, Paul Manafort — and the Russian government. As part of that inquiry, agents have examined intercepted communications and fifinancial trans- actions. Comey has repeatedly declined to discuss the investigation with members of Congress.
Clinton and many Democrats blame Comey for her defeat.
In July, Comey held a news conference to announce that the bureau was recommending to the Justice Department that Clinton and her aides not be charged in connection with the mishandling of classifified information on her personal email server. Comey took the unusual step of criticizing how Clinton and her aides handled classifified information, saying it was “extremely careless.”
Then, 11 days before the election, Comey sent a letter to Congress saying new emails that appeared related to the investigation had surfaced, which the bureau needed to analyze.
The letter set offff a flflurry of reports about Clinton’s personal email server. The emails had been found as part of an unrelated investigation into illicit text messages Anthony Weiner — the estranged husband of Clinton’s closest aide, Huma Abedin — had sent to a 15-yearold girl in North Carolina.
Two days before the election, Comey sent another letter to Congress, saying that the emails had not changed the FBI’s original recommendation to not charge Clinton.
The Justice Department’s inspector general is investigating Comey’s handling of the Clinton email case, including both his decision to discuss it at a news conference and to disclose just days before the election that he had new information that could lead him to reopen it.
The FBI says it welcomes the investigation, and FBI off i c i al s s ay t hey beli eve more information will be made available to the public that will explain his actions.