Former agents describe the justice department veteran as qualified and uncontroversial, but he’s likely to face questioning over his independence

After Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of the FBI director, James Comey, last month, former agents said the bureau’s rank-and-file wanted one thing: a fiercely independent replacement who would restore the bureau’s reputation for staying apolitical.

Christopher Wray, a criminal defense attorney and former senior justice department official, may not have been their first choice. But Trump’s pick for FBI director seems qualified and “fairly non-controversial”, according to former agents.



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“He has the credentials that bode well,” said Jeffrey Ringel, a 21-year veteran of the FBI who now heads a private security consultancy.



Wray, 50, is likely to face Democratic questions over his independence, given his work as an attorney to Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor who chaired Trump’s transition team, and the curious fact that Wray possesses Christie’s old cellphone.

The phone’s location was a mystery during the trial of former Christie allies charged over the 2013 “Bridgegate” scandal. They argued unsuccessfully that the phone should be turned over to help them hunt for text messages between Christie and his chief of staff, which were erased from the chief of staff’s own phone. Christie’s office eventually confirmed that the device was being held by Wray.



But former FBI agents played down the significance of Wray’s link to a Trump associate. “If he was trying to keep evidence out of court, that’s what a defense attorney does,” said Louis J Caprino, who served as an FBI agent for 29 years and now runs a public safety program at Vincennes University in Indiana.



Ringel agreed that Wray’s history of defending Christie was not “really a consideration” as “lawyers have a duty to protect their client as best they can”.



Is Comey's dismissal a cover-up? Donald Trump, the first US president since Richard Nixon to fire the person leading an investigation that bears on him, is certainly acting like a man with something to hide. The White House claims Comey was fired for mishandling an inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails and that Trump had been losing confidence in him since the election. But few find this explanation credible, given that Trump previously praised Comey for showing “guts” in his scrutiny of Clinton.

Critics say the true motive was Comey’s refusal to drop the FBI's inquiry into possible links between Trump’s associates and Russia during last year’s election campaign. Matters had come to a head: the president’s growing anger and frustration at Comey’s focus on Russia and his failure to stop leaks from the FBI; the identification of Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn as a blackmail risk; and reports, denied by the justice department, that Comey was asking for more resources to accelerate his work. Numerous Democrats have accused Trump of a cover-up, drawn comparisons with Nixon and Watergate, and demanded the appointment of a special prosecutor. Republican leaders have resisted this call and stood by the president, although others have dissented.



Further questions about Wray’s suitability for the FBI job may arise because a partner at the law firm he is poised to depart, King & Spalding, currently serves as an ethics counsel to the trust that holds Trump’s business assets.



An Obama rule renewed by Trump in January bars presidential appointees for two years from working on any matters related to his or her former employer or clients. The FBI is reviewing Trump’s business interests as part of its investigations into ties between his presidential campaign and Russia.



But Norman Eisen, a former ethics counsel to Barack Obama, said the rule should not present a problem to Wray “if Wray did not do work on the Trump matter” himself while at his law firm.

Democratic senators may also be keen to ask Wray about the “energy company president” defended by Wray “in a criminal investigation by Russian authorities” who is listed among his past clients on Wray’s biography at King & Spalding, which has been taken down from the company’s website.

FBI agents were outraged by the manner of Trump’s dismissal of Comey, which many viewed as disrespectful. Comey found out that the president had fired him from news reports as he was giving a speech to agents in Los Angeles. The following day, Trump reportedly called Comey a “nut job” in a conversation with Russian officials in the Oval Office.

Even former FBI agents who disapproved of Comey’s handling of the Clinton email investigation considered the way Trump fired Comey “disgraceful” and a slap in the face to the bureau. Whatever their personal opinions of Comey, former agents said, he had done honorable public service.

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The White House and the president gave multiple, contradictory reasons for why Comey was fired. The administration reportedly backed away from having the president visit FBI headquarters after Comey’s dismissal, amid reports of fury and frustration within the FBI at the president’s actions, as well as the way White House officials publicly disparaged Comey’s character after he was fired.

In congressional testimony, the acting FBI director, Andrew McCabe, flatly denied the White House’s assertion that Comey had lost the confidence of FBI agents.

Trump had considered a parade of possible candidates for FBI director, including some overtly political choices, such as the former senator Joe Lieberman, who later publicly withdrew himself from consideration.



As the search for Comey’s replacement kicked off, one former FBI official, Ron Hosko, said: “What some reasonable people might fear is that this might become a game of FBI Apprentice.”



In a statement on Wednesday, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, said America was “fortunate” that Wray had decided “he is willing to make this personal commitment to serve”.

Sessions called Wray “an extraordinary person, possessing all the gifts necessary to be a great director of the FBI”.

Former agents said that a nominee who had served in the FBI himself, such as the former TSA chief John Pistole or the former congressman Mike Rogers, might have been more popular choices for the position of FBI director, an appointee who typically serves a 10-year term, and might have had an advantage in restoring some of the FBI’s battered morale. But Wray was also a much better choice than Lieberman or another politician, former agents said.

“I think most rank-and-file employees are going to have an open mind about this guy,” said one recently retired FBI agent, who served for 26 years, most recently in Philadelphia. The former agent, who had called Comey’s firing “unprecedented and very, very suspicious”, said Wray was “certainly qualified” and a “decent choice” and that he expected Wray would be easily confirmed by the Senate.



It’s fantastic news for our country ... I wish I had as steady a moral compass as his Jake Poinier, writer and high school friend

Wray “hasn’t been a person on the forefront either for or against the current administration”, which was a positive, said Ringel, who is now the director of the Soufan Group, a security consultancy.



FBI agents do not expect directors to have experience working within the bureau itself, but they do value justice department experience – and having a director who understands the nuts and bolts of how to conduct an investigation.

Wray worked as an assistant US attorney in Georgia and spent two years as the assistant attorney general in charge of the justice department’s criminal division, before returning to private practice. He “has been in the trenches” and worked directly with federal law enforcement agents, “which will win him credit with the rank and file”, Ringel said.

Wray’s choice to leave public service for a much more lucrative job as a criminal defense attorney will probably be viewed as a typical decision for many federal prosecutors, the former FBI agent who served in Philadelphia said.



But the question of what Wray will do after his tenure as FBI director may prompt some skepticism, the former agent said.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Christopher Wray, who was then assistant attorney general, sits behind James Comey at a news conference in 2004. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

“He’s only 50 years old. Let’s presume he serves his full 10 years, and then he leaves the government at 60. Where does he go? He’s going back to criminal defense.” After serving as FBI director, he said, Wray would be “worth even more”.

Wray was raised in New York and attended Phillips Academy, the same posh New England boarding school as the former presidents George Bush and George W Bush. He graduated from Yale University in 1989 and promptly married his classmate Helen Howell that summer, beforegraduating from Yale Law School in 1992. The couple own a house in Atlanta and have a son and a daughter.

Jake Poinier, Wray’s high school friend, college roommate and best man, said Wray was a serious-minded student who was conservative but not politically active. Asked for a standout memory of their youth, Poinier said that at both Phillips and Yale, “our lives revolved around rowing”. The pair were team-mates on the university’s lightweight crew.

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“It’s fantastic news for our country – I can’t think of anybody I’ve known in my life who would do a better job on all this,” Poinier, now a Phoenix-based writer and editor, said of Wray’s nomination, adding: “I wish I had as steady a moral compass as his.”



The White House on Wednesday emailed out a series of statements hailing Wray’s credentials from a list of former senior officials, including Mary Jo White, the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission under Obama. White called Wray “smart, independent” and “widely regarded as a strong leader”.



Kent Alexander, the Clinton administration US attorney who hired Wray as an assistant US attorney, was quoted as saying that Wray “always put justice before politics”.

Wray oversaw the inquiry into the scandal-ridden collapse of Enron, which the FBI called the “largest and most complex white-collar investigation” in the bureau’s history. The case led to the convictions of several executives at the energy giant.

Civil liberties campaigners voiced concerns about Wray’s involvement in the legal oversight of the Bush administration’s detention, rendition and torture of terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks. Faiz Shakir, the national political director of the ACLU, said senators “should press Wray to come clean about his role” in the Bush-era programs.

The FBI Agents Association (FBIAA), which represents about 13,000 active and former FBI agents, had endorsed a different candidate for FBI director, Rogers, the former Republican congressman who once served as an FBI agent himself.

In a statement Wednesday morning, Thomas O’Connor, the association’s president, did not endorse or oppose Wray’s nomination, but said the group “looks forward to meeting with Mr Wray” and that it was “critically important that the FBIAA understands his views on the FBI, special agents, and the criminal and national security threats that agents combat daily”.

“I just want to hear him say he’s not going to be giving many press conferences,” Caprino, the former FBI agent, said.