FBI Director Christopher Wray assured Rep. Adam Schiff he would resign before being pressured into “something that wasn’t right” under former President Donald Trump, the congressman claims in a new book.
The conversation happened during one of their early meetings, according to Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, Schiff’s book released last week.
“In one of our first meetings, I had warned him about how many good people the president had chewed up and spat out,” the California Democrat wrote, Insider reported.
“I don’t need this job,” Wray told Schiff, according to the book. “And I would leave it before I ever felt the need to do something that wasn’t right.”
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Wray, a former Justice Department official and private practice lawyer, was nominated and confirmed in 2017 to become the eighth director of the FBI for a 10-year term after Trump fired Director James Comey. Trump called Wray “a man of impeccable credentials,” and in 2018, he said Comey had sullied the FBI’s reputation but Wray would “bring it proudly back.”
But that admiration appeared to fade over time. Trump and conservative allies also criticized Wray, whose job seemed to be in jeopardy toward the end of the prior administration. “He has been disappointing,” Trump said in October 2020, reacting to Wray dismissing voter fraud concerns.
Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, who became chairman in 2019, wrote that Wray was “one of the few remaining agency heads appointed by Trump who was still willing to speak truth to power.”
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President Joe Biden decided to keep Wray, which earned plaudits from Schiff in early January after the inauguration.
“Christopher Wray became FBI Director at a moment of tremendous turmoil for the Bureau and the country, and he has served with great professionalism and integrity,” said Schiff, who cited investigations into “the intelligence and security failures that led to the January 6th assault on the Capitol, and the need to dramatically expand the focus and resources devoted to the threat of domestic terrorism.”
