Wray Heads for the Exit
The FBI director is resigning rather than allow Donald Trump to fire him in January.
It was only a matter of time. Or is that “spending time with his family”? FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that he will resign his post before Donald Trump takes the oath of office on January 20, 2025, and has a chance to fulfill his promise to fire Wray.
In fact, Trump has already named Kash Patel as his choice to lead the FBI.
“After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” he told FBI employees in a town hall Wednesday. “My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day. In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.”
The bit about “the fray” is correct, but the part about “values and principles” is the whole problem, isn’t it?
“The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice,” Trump responded.
In an interview before the resignation, Trump explained his dissatisfaction with Wray in simple terms: “He invaded my home. I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done.”
The raid at Mar-a-Lago was part of the classified documents fiasco. The Leftmedia treats this as little more than a personal grievance on Trump’s part. It’s more than that. It’s about two-tiered justice and the politicization and weaponization of law enforcement against him particularly.
It wasn’t just him, of course. During the last four years, the FBI has, on several occasions, targeted innocent people essentially for what George Orwell called thoughtcrime.
Our Douglas Andrews outlined the FBI’s numerous offenses in recent years. As it pertains to Trump, that includes trying to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election and then persecuting Trump with the Russia collusion hoax. It proceeded with helping Joe Biden win the 2020 election by aiding in the cover-up of the Hunter Biden laptop. Joe just pardoned his son for crimes revealed on the laptop that intelligence officials tried to get us to believe was Russian disinformation.
Wray wasn’t among the 51 officials who signed that letter, but he led the FBI that sat on the laptop for nearly a year and looked the other way as false reports about it spread.
He was Trump’s pick in 2017, and he may have started out with the right intent to clean things up after the disaster of James Comey. He succeeded in some respects. But let’s face it — Wray led an FBI that too often torpedoed its own credibility by making a mockery of the Rule of Law. In many instances, he obfuscated rather than owning up to problems. The Washington Examiner editorial board argued, “Wray has shown that neither his word nor his judgment can be trusted.” Even some of the rank and file called for his resignation back in 2022.
Of course, the FBI has had credibility problems for its entire existence. As Mark Alexander has noted, “The fusion of politics and law enforcement originates with the FBI’s longest-serving director, J. Edgar Hoover. He commanded the organization for nearly half a century through eight presidential administrations.” Alexander recounted a list of FBI offenses and failures going back decades.
That said, it’s important to clarify that the vast majority of the FBI’s 35,000 employees, including more than 13,000 special agents, are good people who are just trying to do their jobs well. In that sense, at least, it’s not “an FBI problem.”
The problem is, so to speak, primarily on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building. The rot is at the top.
Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, for one, isn’t going to let Wray slink off into retirement peacefully. “Wray’s departure is an opportunity for a new era of transparency and accountability at the FBI,” Grassley said. He promises that when he takes over the Judiciary Committee, he will pursue answers and accountability for what he characterizes as Wray’s “obstruction.”
