Christopher Wray: Biden intends to keep the FBI director in his post, an official said

Christopher Wray: Biden intends to keep the FBI director in his post, an official said

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This is not unexpected.

During the transition, Biden signaled his plan to keep Wray on board – if he wasn’t fired first by President Donald Trump. Like all FBI directors, Wray has a 10-year term. Wray was appointed by Trump in 2017 and faced criticism from the former president on a number of issues.

Wray had no reason to think that he was not in a solid position with the new Biden government – despite the fact that White House press secretary Jen Psaki did not respond on Wednesday when asked if Biden trusted Wray.

“I haven’t spoken to him specifically about FBI Director Wray in the past few days,” said press secretary Jen Psaki, “but I’ll be back if there is more to say.”

An officer said that she simply hadn’t spoken to Biden about the FBI leader, so she responded honestly in her first statement. If she is asked about it on Thursday, an official said she will likely respond that Biden does, in fact, trust the FBI director.

Wray’s team of federal investigators is currently chasing thousands of leads in dual efforts to prosecute those involved in the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol and to try to avoid dreaded subsequent attacks in Washington and across the country.

Trump uses FBI director as defense before election day
Wray announced last week that investigators identified more than 200 suspects in their investigation of the United States Capitol attack and arrested more than 100 individuals, a challenge that FBI and Justice Department officials say is “unprecedented”.

While federal police have sought to reassure the American public in recent days that they are up to the task on both fronts, their public comments also reveal the enormity of the challenge they face in tracking potential threats not only to the nation’s capital, but across the country. the country.

Police officers told CNN that the authorities did not notice the main signs before the siege, which left five dead and the Capitol ransacked, and FBI preparations until the day of the Capitol attack are under scrutiny.
The Washington Post reported last week that the FBI warned of a violent “war” on the United States Capitol in an internal report published the day before the deadly siege, but did not act urgently enough to prevent the domestic terrorist attack.

The Post said that on the Tuesday before the attack, an FBI office in Norfolk, Virginia, issued an “explicit internal warning that extremists were preparing to travel to Washington to commit violence and ‘war’.” ”

The report “painted a terrible picture of dangerous plans, including individuals sharing a map of the complex’s tunnels and possible meeting points for would-be conspirators to meet” in several states before heading to Washington.

Before the attacks, Trump made few attempts to hide his disdain for Wray, which many of Trump’s allies have suggested he is doing little to eradicate what they see as rampant corruption in the FBI. He complained in particular that Wray refuses to berate his predecessor James Comey, berated those who recommended him for the job and said he would love to replace him.

Department of Justice and FBI officials told CNN last year that Wray knew that Trump was often unhappy with him and that the possibility of being fired by tweet remained ever present. But Trump’s repeated attacks on Wray seemed destined to motivate a subset of his political base eager to hear him criticize a deep, swampy state – despite taking responsibility for executive nominations and, at the time, enjoying Republican control of the Senate, which confirms the nominated administration.

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