FBI Director Christopher Wray announced his resignation after President-elect Donald Trump said he wanted to replace him with Kash Patel.
Mr. Wray announced his resignation at an all-staff meeting on December 11.
The decision to step down “was not easy,” Mr. Wray said, adding that he chose to do so to “avoid dragging the agency deeper into the fight” and “maintain focus on our mission.”
Mr Trump nominated Mr Wray in 2017, after firing then-FBI Director James Comey over the Russia-related “Russiagate” scandal.
Mr Wray resigned two days after Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, wrote an 11-page letter accusing him of mismanagement and “failing to take control of the FBI”.
Earlier this month, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Kash Patel — a close ally — to head the FBI in the next administration. Democrats opposed the move, arguing that Wray still had years left in his term.
FBI directors can serve up to 10 years under a law passed by Congress after the death of the agency's founder, J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover and his predecessor served a total of 48 years in charge of the FBI.
Although Mr. Wray is a registered Republican and a Trump appointee, the president-elect has criticized his acquiescence to the Joe Biden administration over the past four years.
“He invaded my home,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with NBC, referring to the 2022 FBI raid on his private Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“I can’t say I’m happy” about the FBI, Trump added, citing FBI Director Wray’s testimony to Congress that Trump’s ear was hit by shrapnel rather than an assassin’s bullet last July.
“Christopher Wray’s resignation is a great day for America because it will end the weaponization of the so-called US Department of Justice,” Trump said on his Truth Social social network on December 11.
“Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home without cause, worked tirelessly to impeach and unlawfully prosecute me, and did everything else to interfere with America’s success and future. They have used their enormous power to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of whom will never recover from what has happened to them,” the president-elect added.
