This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 11 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes."
On Wednesday, we learned that one of the most important independent officials in the entire executive branch, the director of the FBI, is leaving his job before the end of his term. And in doing so, he is taking one of the most important remaining guardrails in our democracy with him.
Wray did not have to do this, Trump hired him to serve a 10-year term. That is the law.
With just weeks to go until Donald Trump’s inauguration, FBI Director Christopher Wray gathered employees of the bureau together and told them that he would not stay on for the last three years of his 10-year statutory term.
"After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,” Wray said.
The most incredible thing about all of this is that Wray was supposed to run the FBI until 2027 — after he was hired by Trump in 2017. However, it seems Wray was not sufficiently loyal enough for Trump. Wray didn’t let Trump turn the FBI’s lawyers and cops into his lawyers and cops. See, as president, Trump tried time and again to weaponize the Justice Department and the FBI to go after his critics and perceived enemies. One of his biggest obstacles was Wray.
The director faced enormous pressure to resign from the president-elect’s Republican allies who were mad at the FBI for searching Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home to recover the classified documents he allegedly took from the White House. On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, sent Wray a letter blasting his leadership, writing, “For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives.”
The pressure on Wray only intensified after Trump named the guy he wants to replace him, Kash Patel, a MAGA loyalist who hosts conspiracy theory podcasts and has vowed to “come after” those critical of Trump.
On Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Patel took Wray’s resignation as a great big green light for him to take the job. “We look forward to a very smooth transition at the FBI and I’ll be ready to go on day one,” Patel told reporters.
By stepping down, Wray has basically cleared the decks and arranged a table for Trump. Wray did not have to do this; Trump hired him to serve a 10-year term. That is the law — a law that was passed in 1976 with overwhelming bipartisan support as a part of the post-Watergate government reforms. It says clearly: ”[T]he term of service of the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shall be ten years.” And notes that “A Director may not serve more than one ten-year term.”
The reason we have those term limits and why we try to insulate FBI directors from presidential appointments is because of a man named J. Edgar Hoover, who ran the FBI, and its precursor, for almost a half-century, until his death in 1972.
Over that time, he used its agents and technology for revenge and political influence. He spied on celebrities and activists, concealed evidence, blackmailed adversaries and curried favor with presidents. Congress enacted the 10-year term to prevent future Hoovers.
Only two presidents since then have ever unilaterally fired an FBI director. The first time was in 1993 when Bill Clinton removed William Sessions for a long list of serious ethical violations. Crucially, Clinton wasn’t just trying to dump the guy he inherited so he could replace him with a loyalist; instead, he was acting on a report by the outgoing Bush administration’s Republican attorney general — a guy named William Barr who would go on to serve as attorney general under Trump.
Clinton bent over backward to show he fired Sessions for cause, not for politics. That's completely unlike the second exception to the rule. In 2017, Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Flynn, lied to FBI agents about his contacts with the Russian government. According to the FBI director at the time, James Comey, Trump tried to get him to quash the prosecution of Flynn.
In the end, Trump didn’t even have to break this norm. Wray did it for him by resigning and clearing the way for Trump to install his own guy at the FBI.
When Trump failed, he fired Comey, which put the director’s deputy, Andrew McCabe, in charge of the bureau. McCabe, in turn, launched an investigation into Trump’s politically motivated firing of Comey. Trump then replaced McCabe with Christopher Wray, a guy for whom, at the time, he had high hopes.
It’s easy to forget, but that was all very scandalous when it happened. And now, as Trump prepares to settle back in behind the Resolute Desk, he wants to obliterate the norm he broke: by replacing the FBI director he hired.
But the thing is, in the end, Trump didn’t even have to break this norm. Wray did it for him by resigning and clearing the way for Trump to install his own guy at the FBI. However, to be clear, Patel requires Senate confirmation, which anyone who cares about this country should oppose.
Look, we’re way beyond “this is not normal.” Trump wants a lackey, a man whose sole qualification is that he’s loyal to the president-elect, as the top cop in America. And the one man who could have had something about it, the current FBI director, is just stepping aside — undoing decades of important precedent and accepting Trump’s wishes.
Allison Detzel contributed.