Christopher Wray will be going away and making way for Kash Patel
Couldn’t resist that triple rhyme.
President-elect Trump said Christopher Wray’s resignation is a “great day for America,” telling Fox News Digital it “will end the weaponization” of the FBI, while touting his nominee Kash Patel as the “most qualified” to lead the bureau.
Wray announced Wednesday afternoon his plans to resign in January 2025. …
“After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray said during the town hall. “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.”
The FBI director said the decision was not easy for him, adding he loves the FBI, its mission and people.
Wray is seven years into his 10-year term.
Trump appointed Wray in 2017 after he fired former Director James Comey from the post.
Both of them were dreadful.
I’ve been very impressed with Patel in the past. Let’s assume his nomination is approved by the Republican Senate – and then let’s take a moment to reflect not only how different things would be if Harris had been elected, but how different things would be even if Trump had been elected but the Senate had remained in Democrat hands.
“… My goal is to keep the focus on our mission…”
Which is to subvert Trump and his incoming administration AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, EVERY STEP OF THE WAY.
Hate to say it but this ain’t over yet.
Cf.
“Alvin Bragg’s latest banana-republic Trump stunt proves AGAIN that he must go”—
https://nypost.com/2024/12/11/opinion/alvin-braggs-latest-banana-republic-trump-stunt-proves-again-that-he-must-go/
(And Letitia James is hard at it as well…)
Hope I’m wrong.
…even as Jonathan Turley reminds of something we’ve known well for a long, long time…
“ Jonathan Turley: Susan Wild and other rotten Dems are in an ethical free fall”—
https://nypost.com/2024/12/10/opinion/susan-wild-and-other-rotten-dems-are-part-of-the-latest-political-free-fall-from-the-left/
“President-elect Trump said Christopher Wray’s resignation is a “great day for America,” telling Fox News Digital it “will end the weaponization” of the FBI…”
Let’s pray that Trump doesn’t really think that the weaponization of the FBI only resides with Christopher Wray. While not everyone in the Bureau, the rot extends all the way to the bottom. This is almost certainly the case with every federal agency.
I’ve watched some hearings with Wray. If you wanted to know the time of day, you’d hear ‘ongoing investigation”.
Wray’s resignation was ‘encouraged’ by Sen. Grassley.
“Sen. Chuck Grassley demanded Monday that FBI director Christopher Wray step aside in a brutal rebuke of his tenure at the bureau, as GOP senators cheered President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of Kash Patel to replace him as director.
“For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives,” Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote in a blistering 11-page letter to Wray, referring to the director and deputy director Paul Abbate.
“[I] must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI.”
https://nypost.com/2024/12/09/us-news/sen-grassley-expresses-no-confidence-in-fbi-director-wray-as-republicans-cheer-trump-nominee-kash-patel/
It’s not entirely Wray’s fault, he’s dealing with the agency as it is currently configured. Post-9/11 Mueller and Congress gave FBI a counterintelligence mission in addition to the investigative and law enforcement missions it historically had.
Counterintelligence created many more opportunities for mischief and infringements of civil liberties, and became a career path for the more officious woke busybodies and political operators that populated the FBI as Obama and Eric Holder took control.
Trump, Patel, and Congress need to break out that counterintelligence mission from the FBI and get it back to a professional and largely non-political path.
John Bolton opinion piece on Patel today.
https://archive.md/9QDwN
If you haven’t had time to read Patel’s Government Gangsters, you can watch the film:
https://warroom.film/
I despise John Bolton and am glad he is not in government. He is best on the sidelines. An outrageous self-server.And a buddy of Wray the Fibbie, I’m sure.
My guess he will leave the country unless he gets a Sundowner pardon
thats one way of putting it
https://x.com/themarketswork/status/1866971344107344125
what use is our intelligence agencies
Let’s see what my little poetry machine can do here….
Christopher Wray
resolves to make way
as soon as Trump’s new term shall start
For Grassley did say
To keep rancor at bay
It were well for the man to depart
Now our dear Mr. Wray
“held his team from the fray”
For which he was thought of as smart
Kash and Tulsi said Nay
At the end of the day
The taste of it’s nothing but tart.
I of course credit the hostess for the original impetus.
CNN you’re getting slammed in rating by The Food Network – – let us help you out. . .
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2024/12/cnn-youre-getting-slammed-in-rating-by.html
miguel, that’s hilarious!
To be fair, I always suspected—deep down—that OMB was responsible for ALL those baseless accusations made against him by all those honorable alphabet agencies, who do things “The American Way”(TM) and “wouldn’t hurt a fly”…
(It’s perfectly intuitive, actually…in a “look what HE’s making US do!!!!” kinda way….)
Philip Sells:
Bravo!
“Biden” (and your taxes) at work…
“DHS Announces New Rule To Allow Noncitizen Workers To Keep Jobs Longer While Awaiting Renewals”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/dhs-announces-new-rule-allow-noncitizen-workers-keep-jobs-longer-while-awaiting-renewals
HARD at work…
Ed at 6:10 pm December 11 wrote:
Post-9/11 Mueller and Congress gave FBI a counterintelligence mission in addition to the investigative and law enforcement missions it historically had.
The FIB had counterintelligence duties long before 9/11, often involving Russian espionage in the USA. I suppose you are referring to domestic counterintelligence, but I believe the FIB was surveilling radicals in the sixties, if not earlier. Not to mention Waco, Ruby Ridge etc.
I second Neo’s “bravo” to Phillip Sells!
I just have to mention this, since we probably won’t be talking about Christopher Wray much longer.
I actually used to babysit for him and his sister Katie, in, get this: Paris!
He was about 12, I was 25, I think. His mother gave me a tiny apartment in exchange for occasional babysitting. HIs father directed an international law firm there for a couple of years.
I hadn’t thought about him in years when I read of his appointment as Director of the FBI. I said to myself: Christopher Wray? Is that the Christopher Wray I once babysat for?
It was him! I came across a photo (hard to find at the beginning) and he looked EXACTLY as I remembered. Almost uncanny. HIs hair had that same sculpted, stiff-looking wave. The only difference was that it had turned gray, whereas he had been blond as a boy.
He was a real know-it-all kind of kid (or so I remember him). I believe his personality actually softened with age.
Please note that Comey was a government lifer shown favor by both W. and BO. Wray is a Bush Administration veteran recommended by Rod Rosenstein (an echt government lifer).
==
It would be agreeable if the management level and the Washington HQ were purged, along with the counter-intelligence division. Ideally, the FBI would be broken up into twenty pieces and federal law enforcement would be scattered over about seven departments.
==
A huge problem is the bloat of federal penal code, the permissive rules of criminal procedure, and the lack of a mechanism to sanction bad behavior among judges and prosecutors.
A nice follow-up to my earlier post.
https://thefederalist.com/2024/12/12/john-boltons-cheap-shots-at-kash-patel-are-a-sign-of-panic-in-washington/
I strongly second Art Deco’s post, as is usual for me. Almost a reflex by now!
Barry-
The extended stay for non-citizen workers is retroactive to May 2022!
Democrats in federal bureaucracy at “work”.
actually he was recommended by chris christie, who used him to get out of the bridgegate disaster, but any thorough investigation would have revealed him to be volunteer mutineer against W during the whole Alberto Gonzalez affair involving the NSA, Comey was a major player*
*in a subsequent memoir Gonzalez still hasn’t figured out what happened,
The Secret Service also needs atop to bottom reform.
Here is an article pointing out that the Secret Service Agent who belatedly spotted would be assassin Routh hiding in the bushes at Trump’s golf course fired six shots at Routh from five feet away, point blank range–yet, not one of this Agent’s shots hit the assassin.*
Isn’t part of any basic law enforcement handgun training to fire at a target which is at what has been found to be the most common distance, what we might call a “combat distance” away from you i.e. five feet?
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/12/new-revelations-expose-shocking-incompetence-secret-service-agent/
Susan, what an odd historical circumstance! Interesting to hear about.
Snow on Pine:
and yet this evening we watched the latest episode of FBI’s Most Wanted, and ace FBI agent Remy Scott shoots the bad guy, who is about 50 or 60 feet away, from a standing position, once, and hits him square in the middle of the forehead. Go figure!!
R2L–
In far more innocent days, when I was in grade school, almost 7 decades ago now, our main entertainment, which I used to listen to when I walked back home from school each day, was the Radio, and I remember I used to listen to “The FBI in Peace and War,” which made the FBI and it’s agents out to be the straightest of “straight arrows”–extremely admirable, noble, tough, patriotic, and very skilled at what they did.
How far the FBI and it’s agents have fallen.
Propaganda is a very powerful tool.