FBI brass ‘stunned’ and ‘shell-shocked’ over Trump reelection:
The brass on the seventh floor at FBI headquarters in Washington have been in a daze and wary of a housecleaning since Donald Trump was reelected president on Tuesday, inside sources say.
The Washington Times learned through several anonymous bureau sources that senior agency executives were “stunned” and “shell-shocked” by Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.
“You know the fit test? How they let the standards slack on the fit test?” said the first FBI source, referring to the agency’s physical fitness requirements. “Everyone’s going to have a real problem when they’re running for the door.”
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Deputy Director Paul Abbate have little chance of remaining at the bureau by the time Mr. Trump is inaugurated, sources say.
FBI employees recall Mr. Trump firing Director James B. Comey five months after taking the oath of office in 2017.
“It’s a countdown for Wray because [people here] don’t think he will stay to get fired after what Trump did to Comey,” the first source said. “Trump will say, ‘Yeah, fire his a—. Don’t let him take the plane home.’”
Mr. Comey learned about his termination while flying to California on the bureau’s airplane.
Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wray as FBI director in 2017 after firing Mr. Comey. The director’s term is 10 years, depending on the president’s confidence.
Sources say others on the seventh floor of the FBI are so concerned about their jobs that they are likely to flood Washington’s private security job market.
Most of the sources said no one’s job in the FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe, and they fully expect Mr. Trump to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”
Former FBI whistleblower George Hill told The Washington Times that people in the agency say the state of the FBI is “frazzled.”
“I have friends still at the bureau telling me that no less than 50 senior executives (SES) are scrambling to retire ASAP,” he said. --->READ MORE HERE
Trump’s election may usher in leadership change at FBI:
Donald Trump lavished Christopher Wray with praise when he named him FBI director in 2017, introducing him as an “impeccably qualified individual” and a “model of integrity.”
So much has changed in the seven years since.
With Trump poised to reclaim the White House, Wray’s days as director may be numbered. Though the director’s job carries a 10-year term, Trump’s blistering and repeated criticism of his own appointee raises the likelihood that Trump would either replace Wray upon taking office or that Wray would leave on his own to avoid being fired. Such a move would give Trump a chance to reshape the FBI’s leadership in his own image at a time when he’s threatened to pursue his own political adversaries.
“He enjoys the work, he’s committed to the bureau, he’s an outstanding public servant — but I don’t think he’s going to lobby for the job,” Gregory Brower, a former FBI official who served as director of congressional affairs until 2018, said of Wray.
“If the new president wants to replace him, then that’s what the new president’s going to do,” he added. “Based on what Trump has said in the past, I think it’s likely we’ll see that.”
Trump’s transition office did not return an email seeking comment. An FBI official said Wray was continuing to oversee the bureau’s day-to-day operations — including visiting the FBI’s election command post multiple times this week — and was planning with his team to lead the workforce into the next year. The official, an executive who interacts with Wray on a day-to-day basis, was not authorized to discuss the details publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Trump hasn’t spoken publicly about Wray in recent days but he’s known to take a particularly keen interest in the FBI and Justice Department in part because his first term and post-presidency life were shadowed by investigations, including two that resulted in indictments now expected to wind down. The positions are being closely watched because whoever occupies them may be confronted with Trump’s stated desire to seek retribution against opponents, even though longstanding guardrails would complicate such plans, and because the FBI is facing more global threats than any time in recent memory.
A recent Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity on former presidents could also embolden Trump to demand particular Justice Department investigations, as occurred in his first term. --->READ MORE HERE
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