What happened
FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday he will step down at the end of President Joe Biden’s term, seven years into his 10-year tenure. President-elect Donald Trump had vowed to fire Wray if he did not step aside, so he could install loyalist Kash Patel.
Who said what
Resigning 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 at an FBI town hall. The gathered employees gave him a “standing ovation and some people were seen crying,” CNN said. Trump called Wray’s decision “a great day for America.”
Wray is now the “second straight FBI director driven out by Trump,” Reuters said. Appointed in 2017 after Trump fired James Comey, Wray has stalwartly steered the FBI through “one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods” in its history, The New York Times said. His “apparent successor,” Patel, could not be more different,” vowing to fire FBI leadership, “empty its headquarters and root out the president-elect’s perceived enemies.”
What next?
When Wray steps down, presumably on Jan. 20, Deputy Director Paul Abbate “will likely take the helm of the bureau for several months before his own long-planned retirement in April,” The Wall Street Journal said. “It remains unclear when — or if — Patel would secure Senate confirmation for the post.”