A month after he fired James Comey as the FBI Director, Donald Trump has announced he is nominating lawyer and former assistant Attorney General Christopher Wray to replace him.
Mr Trump ousted Mr Comey as he was overseeing a federal probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 election. At the time, he said to an interviewer: “I said ‘you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won’.”
With the post having been empty since Mr Comey’s firing on May 9, Mr Trump and his team had considered a number of people for the position. Among them was former Democratic senator Joe Lieberman.
Mr Trump, who has shown no small ability to create headlines, especially to replace negative ones about him, used Twitter to make his announcement. He did so just hours before four intelligence officials are due to give testimony on Capitol Hill about the Russia investigation, and a day before Mr Comey is himself scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee.
While Mr Comey is not expected to divulge details of the ongoing probe, now being headed by former FBI Director Robert Mueller, reports suggest he will provide details of conversations he had with Mr Trump, and which he kept notes of.
Among the conversations he will reportedly provide details of, are one when Mr Trump allegedly asked him to display his loyalty to the president. During another reported conversation, Mr Trump allegedly asked Mr Comey to drop his investigation into his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, a former general who was forced to resign after it emerged he had lied about his contacts with Russian officials.
Last month, it was announced that Mr Wray, 50, who served as assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005, would join the list of applicants being interviewed for the vacant position.
The website of the Mr Wray’s law firm says: “Mr Wray chairs the King & Spalding Special Matters and Government Investigations Practice Group, which represents companies, audit and special committees, and individuals in a variety of white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement matters, parallel civil litigation, and internal corporate investigations.”
Among his high profile clients was Chris Christie, the New Jersey Governor, who retained Mr Wray during the so-called Bridgegate controversy, an investigation into the 2013 closure of lanes on the George Washington Bridge as political payback against a local politician.
Three senior officials working for the governor were found guilty, but Mr Christie was cleared of criminal charges.
