President Trump Picks New FBI Director
President Trump says he has chosen Christopher Wray to head the FBI.
President Donald Trump has announced that he has chosen Christopher Wray to be the new FBI Director.
The announcement came in a tweet from the president on his @realDonaldTrump handle. The tweet read, “I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.”
Wray has spent time in both the public and the private legal sectors since graduating law school 25 years ago. From 1997 to 2001, he served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.
In May 2001, at the beginning of George W. Bush administration, he joined the Department of Justice as Associate Deputy Attorney General. He served as Assistant Attorney General for the Department’s criminal division from 2003 to 2005; part of his job included responding to the 9/11 attacks.
Wray has spent the last 12 years working in litigation as a partner at the King & Spalding law firm in Washington and Atlanta where he oversees the “Special Matters and Government Investigations Practice Group.” Typically, he represents companies involved in government investigations.
Part of Wray’s work at King & Spalding included representing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie when he was embroiled in a scandal surrounding the closings of lanes to access the George Washington Bridge, otherwise known as “Bridgegate,” according to his law firm biography. Christie never faced criminal charges in the case, although it damaged his bid for the presidency in 2016 and two of his associates were convicted.
Wray will need to be confirmed by the Senate in order to serve as FBI Director. Directors are typically sworn in for decade long terms to remain as apolitical as possible.
The announcement comes weeks after President Trump fired James Comey and just one day before Comey is set to testify to Congress on June 8. Comey is expected to refute Trump’s interpretation of conversations between the two.