FBI Director Christopher Wray says he intends to step down before Trump term begins - The Boston Globe

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

84% : Trump welcomed the news of the move, praising it on social media as "a great day for America.
60% : At the start, Trump called Wray "a man of impeccable credentials."
53% : "Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill, Patel said that "we look forward to a very smooth transition at the FBI, and I'll be ready to go on Day 1."Wray became the bureau's eighth director in August 2017, after Trump fired James Comey from the job in 2017 in the middle of the Russia investigation.
49% : The announcement comes after Trump said in late November that he intended to nominate Kash Patel, a longtime loyalist, to run the FBI, and more than two years before Wray's 10-year term would have expired.Paul Abbate, the deputy FBI director, is set to retire in April but would typically serve as acting director until Patel is confirmed.
49% : His FBI repeatedly investigated Trump, including by conducting a court-approved search of the president-elect's Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 for classified documents, examining his widespread efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and delving into the possible links between his 2016 campaign and Russian intelligence operatives engaged in election interference.
45% : Trump wrote on social media.
41% : Over more than seven years, Wray oversaw one of the most consequential and tumultuous periods in the bureau's history, juggling high-profile criminal investigations of political figures, heated congressional inquiries and two attempted assassinations of Trump.
38% : Wray withstood extraordinary pressure from Trump to leverage the powers of law enforcement to damage his perceived enemies and later to play down the threats of right-wing violent extremism and Russian election interference.
37% : But it was the bureau's scrutiny of Trump that almost certainly cut short Wray's tenure.
37% : After an assassination attempt in July at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump lashed out at the FBI because the bureau did not definitively say he had been shot in the ear.
34% : Though the president has the authority to fire the FBI director anytime, only one director had been fired in the bureau's 108-year history before Trump began his first term.
33% : Though separated by years, the investigations into Trump led to the firing and resignation of two FBI directors, highlighting the political perils of scrutinizing the incoming president.
31% : In leaving before Trump is sworn in, Wray may avoid the kind of public standoff that marked some firings during the first Trump administration.
30% : But the turbulence at the FBI is all but certain to continue if Patel is confirmed and Trump tries to make widespread changes at the agency.
29% : During the 2024 campaign, Trump publicly declared that Wray should resign, and it was clear his antipathy had only intensified, partly because of the 2022 search of his Florida home.
19% : Only a few months into his first term, Trump abruptly fired Comey, prompting bureau officials to open an inquiry into whether the president dismissed him to obstruct the Russia investigation.
18% : Trump has vowed to investigate and possibly prosecute his perceived enemies, whom he accuses of unfairly prosecuting him.

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