Hours After Withering Grassley Letter, FBI Director to Resign: Report

It was only a matter of time before FBI Director Christopher Wray was out.

Even though he still has three years left in his 10-year appointment, the FBI director serves at the pleasure of the president. Wray, who replaced the noxious James Comey in the position, did little better to engender trust in the bureau and ingratiated himself just as well with what we’d call “deep state” types — unaccountable bureaucrats who think the real power should reside with them, not the people, and get their way most of the time.

But, if you think Wray is leaving without a fight — well, according to reports, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.

Days after Trump announced Kash Patel as his nominee for FBI director and hours after a blistering 11-page Monday letter from incoming Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, reports indicate that Wray is preparing to leave either before or when Donald Trump takes office for the second time.

“He’s going to be gone at the inauguration — on or before the inauguration,” a source told the Washington Times.

“Mr. Wray is calling it quits because he doesn’t want to get fired by President-elect Donald Trump, according to sources inside the bureau who are familiar with the director’s thinking,” the outlet reported.

“Following Mr. Wray’s departure, Deputy Director Paul Abbate will become acting director and appoint an acting deputy director. Mr. Abbate’s original plan was to stay until May or June, so he could help with the transition to a new FBI director.”

Patel will have to be confirmed by the Senate, and his nomination was seen as one of the more difficult picks for a second Trump administration to shepherd through a confirmation process.

However, Grassley’s letter to Wray, putting the FBI director on blast for his actions during his six-and-a-half years in the job, made it clear that the GOP wanted someone else and wasn’t going to dissuade Trump from firing Wray with three years and change left in his tenure.

Among the “failures” cited in the letter from Grassley to Wray were several acts of what he characterized as politically motivated actions against Trump and the GOP, Fox News reported.

“The Senate confirmed you to your current position in hopes you’d bring needed change to the FBI after the politicization and scandal presided over by your predecessor, Director James Comey. While I sincerely congratulated you on your nomination, I reminded you that an FBI Director’s ten-year term is a ceiling, not a floor, and laid down my expectations for your service,” Grassley wrote.

“These included foremost the prompt and thorough compliance with congressional oversight requests and the protection of whistleblowers, whom I’ve spent my career defending. As we stand at the threshold of a new Congress and a new administration, with seven years of water under the bridge, you’ve failed in these fundamental duties as director.

“Even President Biden, who denied weaponizing his administration against President-elect Trump, has finally admitted that political bias has indeed infected law enforcement,” he continued.

“These failures are serious enough and their pattern widespread enough to have shattered my confidence in your leadership and the confidence and hope many others in Congress placed in you. Rather than turn over a new leaf at the FBI, you’ve continued to read from the old playbook of weaponization, double standards, and a relentless game of hide-and-seek with the Congress.”

This included the “unprecedented raid” on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in August of 2022, noting that he had authorized roughly 30 armed FBI agents to “use lethal force if needed” during the search.

“This raid occurred despite serious questions about the need for it. President Trump apparently was cooperating with the investigation, notwithstanding liberal press reports. He voluntarily turned over 15 boxes of documents months before the FBI’s drastic escalation,” Grassley said.

He added that Hillary Clinton was never subject of such a raid “even though she and her staff mishandled highly classified information while using a non-government server.”

Furthermore, he alleged, the FBI under Wray acted as an “accomplice to the Democrats’ false information campaign designed to undermine my investigation of alleged Biden-family corruption.”

“On August 6, 2020, as Senator Ron Johnson and I were finishing our report on the Biden family’s financial connections to foreign governments and questionable foreign nationals, you succumbed to pressure from Democrats in Congress and provided an unnecessary briefing that Democratic leadership requested in an effort to falsely label our investigation as Russian disinformation,” he wrote.

“That briefing consisted of information we already knew and information that wasn’t connected to our Biden investigation. We made clear at the time our concern that the briefing would be subject to a leak that would shed false light on the focus of our investigation. Predictably, on May 1, 2021, the Washington Post did just that, falsely labeling our investigation as Russian disinformation.”

Furthermore, he said, the FBI “sat on bribery allegations” involving the Biden family.

In addition to all of this, the FBI under Wray failed to act on the vetting process of Afghan nationals admitted to the U.S. in the wake of the fall of the country to the Taliban and “refused” to provide Congress info, also didn’t provide information regarding a memo which described traditional Catholics as potential violent extremists, didn’t act on “credible whistleblower disclosures” of sexual harassment, and showed an “outright disdain for congressional oversight.”

“Your and Deputy Director Abbate’s failure to take control of the FBI has hindered my work and others’ work throughout multiple Congresses on matters that needed timely information, and has prevented the truth on some issues from ever reaching the American people. You’ve also shown a continuing double standard and failure to carry through on promises,” Grassley wrote.

Thus, with the writing on the wall, Wray is apparently out on his own accord — although the FBI didn’t say as much in a statement to the Washington Times.

“The FBI has repeatedly demonstrated our commitment to responding to Congressional oversight and being transparent with the American people. Director Wray and Deputy Director Abbate have taken strong actions toward achieving accountability in the areas mentioned in the letter and remain committed to sharing information about the continuously evolving threat environment facing our nation and the extraordinary work of the FBI,” they said in a statement.

Well, the deep state weeps tonight. It remains to be seen whether Kash Patel gets the gig of cleaning the bureau out — but as for Wray, it couldn’t happen to a better guy.

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