FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign before Trump takes office

FBI Director Christopher A. Wray announced Wednesday that he would resign at the end of the Biden administration, stepping down as the leader of the 35,000-person law enforcement bureau before President-elect Donald Trump takes office and can fire him.

Wray’s resignation comes seven years into his 10-year term — a tenure that is meant to span multiple administrations and is intentionally longer than other executive branch appointments to avoid politicization of the FBI. Trump announced last month that he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, sending a message to Wray that he should either resign or prepare to be fired.

Wray announced his plans at a town hall with the FBI workforce on Wednesday afternoon, telling his employees that while it was a hard decision to cut his term short, he believed it was the best one for the bureau. It was an emotional meeting, according to an FBI official, and Wray’s announcement was met with a long standing ovation from his staff. After the town hall, Wray shook hands with many of FBI employees in the room.

“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,” Wray said, according to excerpts released by the FBI.

“It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway — this is not easy for me,” he continued. “I love this place, I love our mission, and I love our people — but my focus is, and always has been, on us and doing what’s right for the FBI.”

If an FBI director steps down or is fired, the bureau’s deputy director generally takes over while a permanent director awaits Senate confirmation. Wray’s deputy, Paul Abbate, is respected veteran of the bureau. But he is nearing retirement, and it’s unclear whether he or someone else will be the deputy director when Trump becomes president and Wray steps down.

Wray took over as FBI director in 2017, appointed by Trump during his first term. Trump had fired the former director, James B. Comey, as the bureau investigated whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.Wray has overseen the bureau at a time of widespread threats. He has warned in numerous speeches about the danger posed by cyberattacks from China. And he has addressed Congress and others about threats of violence from within the United States against public and law enforcement officials, including his own FBI agents.

The director has repeatedly pushed back against critics of the FBI, trying to assure the public that the bureau is apolitical and that its employees conduct their work by the book.

Wray was overwhelmingly confirmed as FBI director in 2017 with a 92-5 vote in the Senate. The five votes against his nomination were all Democrats. Among them was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who said she couldn’t vote for someone Trump appointed because she feared the director would not be independent enough from the president.

But throughout his confirmation hearing and tenure, Wray has said he would not pledge his loyalty to Trump.

“If I am given the honor of leading this agency, I will never allow the FBI’s work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law and the impartial pursuit of justice, period, full stop,” Wray said during his confirmation hearing. “My loyalty is to the Constitution and to the rule of law. Those have been my guideposts throughout my career, and I will continue to adhere to them no matter the test.”

Wray had been a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush. Trump soon soured on his new pick, complaining about the FBI director’s support for the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian interference, among other things. In 2020, while running for reelection, Trump complained that Wray was not doing enough to help his campaign and weighed firing him.

But he didn’t, and Wray went on to serve for the entirety of the Biden administration, further incurring Trump’s wrath as his agents launched two even higher-profile investigations into the former president himself. The first focused on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, and the second examined his wide-ranging efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

Both investigations led to federal indictments. But the classified documents indictment was dismissed by a federal judge in Florida who ruled that special counsel Jack Smith had been unlawfully appointed. And the election-interference case was dismissed in late November at the request of Smith, who said he stood by the facts of the indictment but recognized that Trump had won this year’s election and long-standing Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.

Trump and his allies criticized Wray and the FBI especially sharply after agents conducted a court-approved search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home and private club. Their incendiary rhetoric prompted violent threats against the FBI, with Wray confiding to senior law enforcement officials that he was very angry about the attacks, The Washington Post reported at the time.

Testifying on Capitol Hill last year, Wray said it was “somewhat insane to me” to suggest he was biased against conservatives, given that he was a Republican appointed by another Republican.

Initial reaction to his resignation by lawmakers split along partisan lines, with Democrats warning of the potential dangerous precedent set by ousting an FBI director and Republicans cheering what they saw as the start of a new era at the bureau.

“Wray’s resignation has resulted from raw political pressure that is repugnant to our justice system,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) posted on social media. “It vastly heightens the hazards of weaponizing the FBI for political or personal ends — which should be an anathema to all my colleagues, regardless of party.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a longtime Wray critic, called his departure “an opportunity for a new era of transparency and accountability at the FBI.”

“Future FBI Directors ought to learn a lesson from Wray’s mistakes,” Grassley wrote in a statement. “Stonewalling Congress, breaking promises, applying double standards and turning your back on whistleblowers is no longer going to cut it.”

Wray has been viewed within the bureau as a steady presence, broadly respected by career staffers. Natalie Bara, president of the FBI Agents Association, thanked Wray for his support and leadership on Wednesday after he announced his resignation.

“FBI Special Agents will always be focused on our vital mission-protecting this great nation, safeguarding communities and upholding the U.S. Constitution,” Bara said in a statement. “This commitment is at the core of who we are as Special Agents, and it does not waver when there are changes in a presidential administration or when the leadership in the Bureau changes.”