Christopher Wray, the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said he will resign from his position before the newly elected President of the United States of America (USA) Donald Trump takes office next month, the BBC reports.
Ray announced his departure at today's internal FBI meeting, according to CBS News.
The BBC reports that Trump has publicly signaled his desire to replace Wray with Kesha Patel, a longtime loyalist who has called for "dramatic" cuts to the FBI's powers.
Wray, who was nominated by Trump in 2017 to serve a XNUMX-year term, faced criticism from Republicans during his tenure over the FBI's investigation into Trump after Trump left office.
Voice of America reports that the FBI announced that Ray will leave the position early next year.
The media reports that Trump has hinted that he plans to fire Ray and replace him with the controversial Kesh Patel.
It was Trump who appointed Wray, also a Republican, to a 2017-year term in 2016 after firing his predecessor, James Comey. At the time, Trump was hostile to Comey because of the FBI's investigations into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia in XNUMX.
"After several weeks of careful consideration, I have concluded that the right thing to do for the bureau is for me to serve through the end of the current administration's term in January and then resign," Wray told FBI employees, the agency said.
"My goal is to keep the focus on our mission - the necessary work you do on behalf of the American people every day," Ray told the bureau's employees, the Beta agency reports. He said he believed it was the best way to avoid drawing the bureau deeper into conflict, "while at the same time reinforcing the values and principles that are so important" to how the FBI does its work.
Trump and his conservative aides turned on Wray, and the FBI as a whole, after agents conducted a court-ordered search of Trump's Florida home in 2022 to seize classified documents he kept after taking office.
It sparked one of two federal criminal cases brought against Trump while he was in office, but neither reached the trial stage. Trump has denied that he committed any crime, and claimed that all cases against him are politically motivated. Federal prosecutors suspended their proceedings after Trump was re-elected president, citing the Justice Department's longstanding practice of not prosecuting a sitting president.
Trump's Republican allies have joined him in alleging that the FBI has become politicized, although there is no evidence that Democratic US President Joseph Biden has interfered in investigative processes.
"There are serious problems at the FBI. The American people know that. They expect to see big changes," Republican Sen. Bill Hagerty said in early December, after Trump nominated Patel.
Ray says that throughout his service he followed the law and tried to impartially carry out the duties of the FBI. At the hearing before the House of Representatives committee in 2023, he rejected the idea of implementing the party agenda of the Democratic Party, emphasizing that he is a long-time Republican.
"The idea that I'm biased against conservatives seems a little crazy to me, given my personal history," Ray said.
As the AP writes, the director of the FBI has rarely publicly confronted the White House.
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