Trump to nominate Christopher Wray as head of FBI
After all the Comey turmoil and brouhaha (which is not over yet), this would seem to be a fairly non-controversial pick:
President Trump on Wednesday said he intends to nominate former assistant attorney general Christopher Wray to be the next FBI director.
Wray, currently a litigation partner at King & Spalding, would replace Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who took over when James Comey was fired by Trump in May…
Wray was nominated as assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ’s criminal division in 2003 and served in that role until 2005. After he left the Justice Department, Wray returned to private practice, focusing on “white collar and internal investigations,” according to his DOJ biography.
Ah, but since nothing Trump does is considered non-controversial or conventional, is it possible this could go smoothly?
[NOTE: I haven’t read this article by Jonathan Chait, but the headline amuses me: “Trump Can Commit All the High Crimes He Wants. Republicans Aren’t Going to Impeach Him” because it is a mirror image of what the right (including me) was saying about Obama during his presidency.]
We are at the point where the media will find horror in just about anything he does. Have totally lost any credibility with me anyway. They have let their hysteria lose any sense of proportion.
Oh, I don’t know that Chait’s correct about that. There has been precious little support so far in Trump’s presidency coming from the repubs in Congress. If push comes to shove, the establishment must rule, more’s the pity.
Chiat is projecting. The GOP Establishment would LOVE to have a credible reason to join in impeachment. Should Trump ever hand them a plausible case, they will celebrate for days.
In some circles djt is being criticized for making this announcement to distract from Comey’s appearance tomorrow. Golly gosh, that idiot trump should have waited until his Thursday 4 am tweet.
The theme with Obama is that he was an unknown. He still is.
The theme with Trump is that he is an idiot.
Compare and contrast.
Anyone who thinks Trump is stupid is making a grave mistake.
I don’t think he’s what we would call “book” smart (he watches TV WAY more than he reads books). And I think he has a bad habit of thinking he knows more than he does. But he has a lot of street and media smarts. There are different kinds of intelligences and you don’t win a historically improbable election by being stupid.
GB – while a lot of GOP leaders probably don’t like Trump personally and are alarmed by his approval ratings (34% in latest Quinnipiac), impeach in a sitting GOP President would be a disaster for the party.
Look, all Trump needs to do is be Presidential. That’s all. They will gladly support his agenda if he can build his support in the citizenry beyond his base, quit doing impulsive things that distract from and harm his agenda, etc.
He promised to become Presidential and even “boring” (remember that Sean Hannity interview?). Really wish he would do so. Now, more than ever, I want a boring President, if for no other reason than he won’t be in my face 24×7 the way Trump is.
“Impeach in” = “impeaching” above. My phone hates me (yeah, sure Bill, blame your phone)
Back to Neo’s post, I think it’s true this should be an uncontroversial pick, but with the active investigations and dems smelling blood in the water I just don’t know.
But to the last comment about today’s political climate being a mirror image of the Obama years, vis a vis the way the different sides talk about each other and the President, yes definitely.
Chait’s article is a set of smears, trying to make Trump look worse than Nixon, and more criminal, with no mention of Hillary’s actual crime and lies.
Having secret documents on her home server was illegal. Committing perjury is also illegal, as is obstruction of justice. “Lying” in tweets is not. Pres. Clinton committed the crimes, was impeached, and found “not guilty” in the Den dominated Senate (the impeachment “jury”). Sec. Clinton is also guilty of a crime, and should have been indicted rather than freed w/o a trial … by Comey.
Trump hasn’t committed any crimes; and it’s unlikely that he will. Giving US secrets to the Russians is not a crime when the President does it — the US voters have given him the authorization.
Wray is probably a great pick for FBI director.
Neo, aren’t you interested in finding out if a new FBI investigation can be opened up on Hillary’s illegal server? One lousy head stopped the investigation w/o an indictment — couldn’t a more honest leader restart the investigation and recommend an indictment?
Maybe Comey would be under investigation for “obstruction of justice”?
Tom G – from Trump’s November 23 interview with the NYT
All that “lock her up” stuff was just campaign rhetoric.
I suppose Obama’s supporters could have turned on him if he’d been convincingly accused of actual crimes.
No, I’m being silly here.
Fast and Furious is turning out to be…what we’ve all known all along.
And if you like your doctor….hahahahahaha, what a kidder.
Cash to Iran….so?
Chait is absolutely wrong. (Which is only to be expected.)
And, yes, as mentioned above, he is projecting. It seems that that’s about the only thing Democrats are good at these days (along with fomenting hysteria).
If Trump crosses the line (the line of legality—not the line constantly being defined by Democrats), he’s not going to last long.
n.n. — There are three things necessary for great success in life: ambition, brains, and polish — but you only need two of them. Obama had ambition and polish. Trump has brains and ambition. Polish is not the same as brains.