FBI Director Chris Wray announced his decision to step down before Donald Trump takes over.

President-elect Donald Trump announced that will nominate Cass Patel to take over the critical post of FBI director..

“After weeks of careful consideration, I have decided that the right thing for the Office is to serve until the end of the current government in January and then step down,” Wray told FBI officials today, the agency said in a statement.

The “contra” Trump-Ray

Trump appointed Wray, a Republican, in 2017 after firing his predecessor, James Comey, amid FBI investigations into alleged contacts by members of his campaign staff with Russia in 2016. Trump and his hardline allies they turned on Ray and the FBI more generally, after agents conducted a court-authorized search of Trump’s Florida resort in 2022 to retrieve classified documents he had kept after he left office.

That sparked one of two federal prosecutions Trump faced while out of office, neither of which went to trial. Trump has denied wrongdoing and has characterized all cases against him as politically motivated. Federal prosecutors ended their efforts after his election, citing longstanding Justice Department policy not to prosecute a sitting president.

Trump’s Republican allies joined him in arguing that the FBI had been politicized, although there is no evidence that Democratic President Joe Biden interfered with its investigative processes.

“There are serious problems at the FBI. The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping changesRepublican U.S. Sen. Bill Haggerty said in early December after Trump nominated Patel.

Throughout his tenure, Wray said he followed the law and tried to carry out the FBI’s duties impartially. During a 2023 hearing before a House committee, he dismissed the idea that he was pursuing a Democratic partisan agenda, noting that he was a lifelong Republican.

“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems kind of crazy to me, given my personal backgroundRay said.

FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms, a measure intended to avoid the appearance of partisanship after a political upheaval in the White House every four years.

Wray’s term was not due to expire until 2027.

As he has whittled down his list of Cabinet officials in recent weeks, Trump has assembled a team ready to carry out two of his top priorities: retaliation against political opponents and an overhaul of the U.S. government. USA.

Patel, who will first have to be confirmed by the US Senate, has never worked for the FBI and spent only three years at the Justice Department earlier in his career at the Department of Homeland Security’s Counterterrorism Division. If confirmed, he has pledged to close the FBI’s headquarters building in Washington and drastically redefine the bureau’s intelligence-gathering role.

Throughout his first term, Trump repeatedly considered the idea of ​​replacing Wray for not being strong enough in his defense of the 2016 investigation, but former Attorney General Bill Barr resisted such efforts, Barr told the book of ‘One Damn Thing After Another’.

The FBI has faced increasing criticism from Trump supporters for its various roles in the Trump investigation over the years.

Some of the concerns predate Wray’s tenure, including several damning reports from the Justice Department’s inspector general that accused the office of numerous errors in its warrant applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court during the early investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign , known as the “Crossfire Typhoon”.

Ray’s tenure

Wray, who took over as FBI director seven years ago, informed the agency’s employees of his decision.

During his tenure, Wray has overseen reforms to the FBI’s procedures for obtaining FISA warrants.

The Wray-era FBI also played a major role in investigating and arresting many of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed attempt to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election victory.

More than 1,500 people were criminally charged over the attack.

Trump pledged to pardon some of the Jan. 6 defendants, though he did not provide specifics.

Throughout his tenure as FBI director, Wray has been known as a “hawk” on views on China and has frequently warned that China represents the greatest national and economic security threat facing the United States.

Ray began his career at the Department of Justice in 1997 as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Georgia based in Atlanta.

He was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2003 to lead the department’s Criminal Division, where he oversaw various investigations, including post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts and the Enron Task Force.

Ray also practiced law for approximately 17 years with the law firm of King & Spalding and clerked for former Judge J. Michael Luttig on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit after receiving his degree from Yale Law School.