Search for new FBI boss moving fast, Trump says

Democrats demand president not make a partisan pick

WASHINGTON— While Democrats may trot out any number of demands or manoeuvers to influence the selection of the next director of the FBI, here’s a reality check: Republican President Donald Trump fired James Comey, and he and his party will decide who’s next.

And they’re not wasting time. Trump said Monday the selection process for a nominee for FBI director was “moving rapidly.”

Democrats are irate over Comey’s abrupt ouster, and demanding Trump not nominate a partisan leader. Although they can mount considerable pressure before and during the confirmation process, they don’t control enough votes to influence the outcome. Republicans, with 52 seats, hold a majority in the Senate.

“If they can keep all 52 together, then it won’t matter,” said Michael Gerhardt, a constitutional law professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. If Republicans “start to lose a couple, or two or three look like they’re not on board, that could create more pressure on the majority leader and the president to perhaps do something other than what they were planning on doing.”

The next director will immediately be confronted with oversight of an FBI investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, an inquiry the bureau’s acting head, Andrew McCabe, has called “highly significant.”

The person also will have to win the support of rank-and-file agents angered by the ouster of Comey, who was broadly supported within the FBI. The new director will almost certainly have to work to maintain the bureau’s credibility by asserting political independence in the face of a president known for demanding loyalty from the people he appoints.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein interviewed eight candidates Saturday, including some who were not among the names distributed a day earlier by the White House. The list includes current and former FBI and Justice Department leaders, federal judges and Republicans who have served in Congress.

FBI directors have predominantly been drawn from the ranks of prosecutors and judges. Senate Democrats have insisted that Trump should not pick a politician as the next FBI director. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that the choice should be “certainly somebody not of a partisan background, certainly somebody of great experience and certainly somebody of courage.”