Christopher Wray served as an assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005 during the tenure of former President George W. Bush. | AP Photo Trump taps Christopher Wray to head FBI Wray served as an assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005 and acted as Chris Christie’s personal attorney during the Bridgegate scandal.

President Donald Trump will nominate Christopher Wray as the next director of the FBI, he announced on Twitter on Wednesday, the day before ousted FBI Director James Comey is to testify at a high-stakes Senate hearing.

“I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow,” the president wrote.


Wray served as an assistant attorney general from 2003 to 2005 during the tenure of former President George W. Bush. He currently is a partner at the King & Spalding law firm, where he chairs its special matters and government investigations practice group.

At the Justice Department, Wray was the assistant attorney general in charge of the department’s criminal division, having been unanimously confirmed to that post by the Senate. He was a member of Bush’s corporate fraud task force and led the task force charged with investigating the Enron scandal.

More recently, Wray acted as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s personal attorney during the federal investigation into lane closures leading to the George Washington Bridge that were put in place by members of Christie’s administration as political retribution for a mayor who did not support Christie’s reelection campaign.

“I am proud to announce Christopher as my choice as the director of the FBI,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House more than five hours after the announcement on Twitter. “He is an impeccably qualified individual, and I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity once the Senate confirms him to lead the FBI.”

“It is a great honor to be selected by the president to return to the Department of Justice as director of the FBI,” Wray said in the White House’s emailed statement. “I look forward to serving the American people with integrity as the leader of what I know firsthand to be an extraordinary group of men and women who have dedicated their careers to protecting this country.”

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Trump had been in search of a new FBI director since last month, when he fired Comey. The White House’s initial explanation for the surprise firing centered around a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who pilloried the director’s unusually public handling of the bureau’s investigation into the personal email server maintained by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state.

But Trump undercut that explanation days later in an interview with NBC News in which he said he had already made up his mind to fire Comey before meeting with Rosenstein and that he had made the decision with the bureau’s ongoing Russia investigation on his mind.

The news of Wray’s forthcoming nomination came as a surprise to some powerful senators. Both the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), and the committee’s ranking Democrat, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said they had not been given advance notification from the White House of Wray’s nomination, even though their committee will handle his confirmation hearing. The Justice Department began circulating a bulleted list of “fast facts” about Wray around 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, a little less than two hours after Trump made his announcement on Twitter.

“My impressions are that he’s qualified, certainly that he has the credentials, he has a history with the department,” Feinstein said. “I don’t know that he has any national security credentials, but I don’t think that’s as important as being a good administrator, a good manager and being able to run a department that has more than 30,000 employees.”

At least one Senate Democrat — Jeff Merkley of Oregon — quickly went on the attack against Wray, questioning whether the nominee could exercise true independence from the man who nominated him.

Noting that Wray represented Christie during the so-called Bridgegate scandal, is a Republican donor and that his firm “represents Trump Trust and Russian oil,” Merkley tweeted: “Wray doesn’t pass the test.” A DOJ official said that during his time in private practice, Wray never worked on any issue involving Trump’s business holdings.

The first time Trump and Wray met was on May 30 in a meeting announced by the White House, according to the DOJ official.

Multiple Democratic senators told POLITICO on Wednesday that they want more time to look into Wray’s record before weighing in definitively. Most did not offer immediate criticism after quickly aligning against their former colleague Joe Lieberman, an early front-runner for Trump’s FBI nod.

“I’ve had people that I know who give him high marks,” said Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee. “But I’d like to do a little due diligence first.”

Asked about Wray’s ties to Christie, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said: “I don’t know that anyone who’s ever associated with anybody in the campaign is necessarily automatically disqualified.”

“I think he has solid experience and expertise,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said in an interview. “He needs to have, as well, the independence and guts to stand up to political pressure, which seems all too common in this administration.”

Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-N.D.) said she knows “nothing about” Wray but praised “the fact that he’s not a politician” and “the fact that he’s been a prosecutor. We’ll wait to see what law enforcement’s reaction is. Obviously, the big concern is independence. Is he somebody who is going to act independent of this administration?”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said he has “heard some people I trust say nice things about him this morning, but I don’t know enough about him to have an opinion.”

Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said he would look at Wray’s record “very carefully” but had heard a “positive response” from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who does know the prospective nominee.

Wray must show that he has “the strength of character to stand up to” any administration official “who tries to divert a legitimate criminal investigation,” Durbin added.

In a statement, Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday called Wray “an extraordinary person” with “outstanding accomplishments and a proven record of public service.” He lauded Wray’s past work as a U.S. attorney and his service at the Justice Department, especially in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when Wray was the principal associate deputy attorney general.

“Chris combines a brilliant legal mind, outstanding accomplishments, and a proven record of public service. We are fortunate that he is willing to make this personal commitment to serve his country at this important time,” Sessions said in a statement. “The President asked us to look for an FBI Director who has integrity, who understands and is committed to the rule of law, and who is dedicated to protecting the American people from crime, gangs, and terrorists. We have found our man in Chris Wray.”

Chris Christie said last week he thought Wray “would provide great leadership at the FBI,” though he declined to say whether he had recommended him to the president. The two met when Christie was a U.S. attorney in New Jersey and Wray was at the Justice Department. They collaborated on a criminal investigation into the accounting practices of Bristol-Myers Squibb.

“I have the utmost confidence in Chris. He’s an outstanding lawyer,” Christie told reporters last Thursday as Wray’s name was being floated for the position. “He has absolute integrity and honesty, and I think that the president certainly would not be making a mistake if he asked Chris Wray to be FBI director.”

Ryan on FBI pick: I wasn't consulted by Trump

Wray was one of two candidates, along with John Pistole, a former TSA administrator and deputy FBI director, Trump interviewed last week for the position. Others considered for the job included Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas).

The president’s pick drew praise from a pair of Obama administration officials. Matthew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman, tweeted that Wray was “probably the best choice from the WH short list. His record in the Bush DOJ deserves scrutiny, but he’s a serious, respectable pick.”

In a series of posts to Twitter, Norm Eisen, a White House ethics lawyer during the Obama administration, called Wray a “good choice” who is “very respected in [the] white-collar bar” and “did good job on Enron.” Wray’s past work for Christie should not necessarily count against him, Eisen wrote online, because it is “important not to confuse lawyers and their clients; I repped some controversial folks, too, before becoming a watchdog!”

Brian Fallon, another Obama-era DOJ spokesman who worked on Clinton’s failed 2016 presidential bid, was more skeptical, writing online that “Wray’s work as Christie’s lawyer not disqualifying by itself, but may be basis to say he’ll recuse from Russia probe as part of confirmation.”

Rosenstein has since appointed a special prosecutor to oversee the Russia investigation, a move Trump has railed against. Comey himself is scheduled to testify on Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he is likely to be asked about reports that Trump pressured him to back off the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

Ryan Hutchins and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report.