By ERIC TUCKER Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director Christopher Wray told the bureau workforce Wednesday that he plans to resign at the end of President Joe Biden’s term in January, an announcement that came a week and a half after President-elect Donald Trump said he would nominate loyalist Kash Patel for the job.
Wray said at a town hall meeting that he would be stepping down “after weeks of careful thought,” three years short of the completion of a 10-year term marked by high-profile and politically charged investigations, including that led to two separate indictments of Trump last year.
Wray’s intended resignation is not unexpected considering that Trump had settled on Patel to be director and had repeatedly aired his ire at Wray, including in a television interview broadcast Sunday. By stepping down rather than waiting to be fired, Wray is trying to avert a collision with the new Trump administration that he said would have further entangled the FBI “deeper into the fray.”
“My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day,” Wray told agency employees. “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 was put in the job by Trump and began the 10-year term — a length meant to insulate the agency from the political influence of changing administrations — in 2017, after Trump fired then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump had telegraphed his anger with Wray on multiple occasions. Trump said in the recent interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “I can’t say I’m thrilled with him. He invaded my home,” a reference to the FBI search of his Florida property, Mar-a-Lago, two years ago for classified documents from Trump’s first term as president.
But the soft-spoken director rarely seemed to go out of his way to publicly confront the White House.