This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Senior Trump administration officials are due on Saturday to interview four candidates to succeed James Comey as the FBI’s permanent director.



The potential successors are Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI Director; Alice Fisher, a defence lawyer who used to lead the justice department’s criminal division; Michael Garcia, a New York state appeals court judge; and John Cornyn, a Republican senator from Texas.

The administration is considering additional candidates amid intense pressure to select a leader who will be seen as independent of the White House.

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Attorney general Jeff Sessions and his deputy Rod Rosenstein will interview the four confirmed candidates at the justice department’s headquarters in Washington, said an official with knowledge of the situation. The same official confirmed the names which were reported earlier on Friday.

It was another tumultuous day in Washington which has been roiled since Donald Trump fired Comey on Tuesday.

He originally cited the director’s handling of the FBI investigation into Hilary Clinton’s emails but Democrats said the real reason was the separate investigation into Trump allies’ links with Russia, something Trump seemed to confirm when he said he was thinking of “this Russia thing” when he decided Comey’s fate.

On Friday Trump threatened Comey with possible “tapes” of their conversations, suggesting the president may have secretly recorded White House meetings.

Trump also reportedly backed away from a planned visit to FBI headquarters amid anger from current and former agents over Comey’s dismissal.

Whoever Trump picks to succeed him will need Senate confirmation. The job has a 10-year term.

The furore over Comey’s firing has put McCabe, the acting director, in a delicate position. On Thursday he told the Senate intelligence committee that his former boss had enjoyed broad support among the FBI rank and file – directly contradicting the White House. McCabe also disputed the White House’s claim that the Russia investigation was low priority. He said the investigation would be pursued “vigorously and completely”.

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The other candidates come from varied backgrounds.

Fisher, 50, is a white-collar criminal attorney. As a partner at Latham & Watkins she has been ranked one of Washington’s most influential women lawyers. She ran the justice department’s criminal division under George W Bush. She would be the first woman to lead the FBI.

Garcia, 56, served as assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Bush and before that worked on terrorism investigations as an assistant US attorney.

Coryn, 65, served as Texas attorney general before being elected in 2002 to the Senate, where he championed low taxes and opposed environmental regulations.

The White House is reportedly considering a wide, fluid list of other possible candidates including Trey Gowdy, a Republican Congressman from South Carolina and former federal prosecutor who presided over the House’s Benghazi special investigation.

Another possibility is Michael Luttig, a former justice department lawyer and federal appeals court judge who is widely admired by conservatives.

The administration is facing pressure to tamp down the flames from Comey’s dismissal by choosing someone with bipartisan credentials and an independent reputation.

The new FBI director will have to walk a tightrope in a political gale: satisfying the clamour for a thorough investigation of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia while answering to a president who openly scorns the investigation.

The new director will also have to try mend ties between the agency and the White House.

Louis Caprino, who served as an agent for 29 years and now runs a public safety program at Vincennes University in Indiana, said he did not think the president could now “say much of anything” to mend the relationship. “He’s damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. Rather than words, his actions are either going to make him or break him as a supporter of the FBI.”