Concerns over Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and whether Chris Wray could fall victim to White House pressures if the Atlanta attorney becomes FBI director dominated his confirmation hearing before a key — and friendly — Senate committee Wednesday.
“I would resign,” Wray said when asked what he would do if the president asked him to stop or curtail an investigation and he could not “talk him out of it.”
“I will never allow the FBI’s work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law and the impartial pursuit of justice,” Wray said. “My loyalty is to the Constitution and to the rule of law. … Anybody who thinks that I would be pulling punches as FBI director sure doesn’t know me well.”
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Wray's answers satisfied Republicans as well as Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which spent 5 1/2 hours asking agreeable questions that also showed their concern that Wray could have the same fate as former FBI director James Comey. President Donald Trump fired Comey in May because of the investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 election, and in January, he ousted former acting Attorney General Sally Yates after she refused to make legal arguments in support of the president's travel ban.
“I see a firestorm brewing that would threaten the FBI,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
That “firestorm” continued on Twitter Wednesday with the president defending his older son, who on Tuesday released emails about a meeting he took with a Russian lawyer he believed had information that would help his father’s presidential campaign and hurt the Democrat’s nominee, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Trump called his son, Donald Trump Jr., a victim of “the greatest Witch Hunt in political history,” the Russia investigation.
When asked, Wray said the investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller, who was head of the FBI under President George W. Bush, was not a “witch hunt.”
“I’ve worked closely with Director Mueller. I view him as the consummate straight shooter,” Wray told the committee. “I would be pleased to do what I could to support him in his mission.”
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By the end of the hearing, Wray was all but assured he would soon be running the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
“You have a lot of support here. I’m going to be supporting you as a number of my colleagues are,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat, also announced her support for Wray. And several committee members in their questioning made reference to “when” Wray is head of the agency.
Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said: “We expect to move this along and get a decision quickly.”
Carl Tobias, who holds the Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond, said the senators seemed worried about pressures on the next FBI director from the president, the White House and “to some extent” the Department of Justice, which includes the FBI.
Still, Tobias said, the senators appeared to be satisfied with Wray’s answers.
The committee chairman did not say when he expected a vote or when the full Senate would take up Wray’s confirmation.
Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais
Credit: Pablo Martinez Monsivais
While the 50-year-old Wray is a partner with the Atlanta-based law firm King & Spalding, he’s spent almost half of his career in the U.S. Department of Justice.
He was an assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, handling some cases along with Yates when she too was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. When Wray went to the Justice Department in Washington in 2001, he developed a professional relationship with Comey and Mueller.
In 2004, when then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was in the hospital, Comey temporarily assumed the position of acting attorney general and found himself, along with Mueller, in a standoff with the White House over extending a controversial domestic surveillance program. Comey and Mueller were preparing to resign if Bush disagreed with their position that the program should not be continued, and Wray said he would go with them.
Wray said he would do it again if the circumstances repeated.
“You can’t do a job like this if you are not willing to quit or be fired,” Wray said, repeating advice he received decades ago. “You have to stand firm on your principles.”
No matter how many times Wray said he would be independent, senators repeatedly ask for reassurances from the man Trump described in a tweet as an “impeccably qualified individual.”
“From what we see from the White House, they may be expecting your loyalty,” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said.
Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee last month that Trump asked for his loyalty but he only assured the president that he would be honest.
Wray said in response to Leahy’s concern: “No one asked me for loyalty, and I sure as heck didn’t offer it.”
CHRIS WRAY BIO
Yale Law School graduate, 1992
Law clerk to Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, 1992 to 1993.
Assistant U.S. Attorney in Atlanta, 1997-2001
Criminal Division, U.S. Department of Justice Washington, 2001-2005
King & Spalding, Atlanta and Washington, 2005-present
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