Confirming reports he planned to step down before Donald Trump’s inauguration next month, FBI Director Christopher Wray today announced he will retire at the official end of the Biden administration. Wray, appointed by then-President Trump in 2017, delivered the news during an all-hands-on-deck virtual meeting of more than 38,000 FBI employees.
In typical oleaginous fashion, Wray touted the bureau’s alleged achievements under his leadership — fighting the trafficking of illegal drugs, protecting children from predators, thwarting cybercrime, blah blah — by “abiding by the rule of law and adhering to our core values.” Whatever that means.
The FBI, Wray claimed, is immune to the whimsy of American politics: “Unfortunately, all too often in today’s world, people’s standard for whether something was fair or objective — a Supreme Court decision, a verdict in a high-profile case, the investigation we brought, or the one we didn’t bring — is whether they liked the result, whether their side won or lost. But that’s not how independence and objectivity work. We’re not on any one side. We’re on the American people’s side, the Constitution’s side.”
That, of course, is not true; in fact, it is demonstrably false. While former FBI Director James Comey initiated the partisan weaponization of the FBI against Trump in 2016 with the opening of “Crossfire Hurricane,” Wray accelerated the effort while expanding the FBI’s political hit list. The “side” Wray chose time and again was the side of the Democratic Party — the Bidens in particular — while subjecting Trump supporters and other conservatives to the crushing boot of the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world.
What, No Bragging About Jan 6 and Whitmer Kidnapping Plot?
For example, one day before Wray’s “we don’t take no sides” speech, agents with the FBI Counterterrorism Task Force arrested a man from Florida for his participation in the events of January 6 as the caseload for the FBI’s biggest criminal investigation in history reaches 1,600 total defendants. Wray’s FBI continues to execute military-style SWAT raids of J6 protesters; the FBI just issued a “Most Wanted” poster for a 60-ish man from California who fled his home right before a pre-dawn armed raid on October 17.
Oddly, however, Wray did not brag about the J6 investigation during his scripted remarks today. He did not boast about how the FBI saved America from the threat of Indiana meemaws or decorated veterans pissed off about a rigged presidential election. Wray omitted mentioning the FBI’s extensive use of geofence warrants for cell data and subpoenas for banking records and Amazon purchases and the interrogation of family members and co-workers to hunt down J6 trespassers.
Why so humble all of a sudden, Mr. Wray?
He also failed to mention the greatest unsolved crime related to a day Wray himself designated an act of domestic terror: the identity of the J6 pipe bomber. Wray’s FBI still offers a $500,000 reward for anyone who helps nab the individual who allegedly planted explosives — devices Wray’s FBI insist were “viable” and “lethal” — outside the headquarters of the RNC and DNC the night of January 5. Surely the fact the MAGA bomber, who almost assassinated Kamala Harris that day, is still on the loose must keep Wray up at night. Isn’t that open case something Wray would want to encourage his presumed successor, Kash Patel, to pursue?
Wray also overlooked the FBI’s “success” in foiling the plot to kidnap and kill Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, which was considered the FBI’s biggest domestic terror investigation prior to January 6. Why didn’t Wray take credit for saving Whitmer from the guy living in the basement of a vacuum repair shop in a Grand Rapids strip mall?
Which leads to one reason why Wray may have abruptly announced his resignation today: the long-awaited release of an internal DOJ investigation into the FBI’s role in January 6, which could happen by the end of the week. As I reported here, the report by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz is expected to at least partially confirm the number of FBI confidential human sources, commonly known as informants, before and on January 6.
In many ways, the Whitmer fednapping hoax — which involved dozens of FBI informants, undercover employees, and handling agents working out of numerous FBI field offices — represented a dress rehearsal for January 6.
And Wray’s Congressional testimony over the past few years related to his knowledge about the presence of informants may contradict the official findings, possibly prompting perjury charges against him after he vacates the J. Edgar Hoover building next month.
At the same time Wray’s FBI concocted the Whitmer fednapping hoax to make it appear that rightwing gun crazies wanted to take out one of Trump’s biggest political foes in 2020, Wray’s FBI created a coverup operation for Hunter Biden’s incriminating laptop. Despite possessing the device, loaded with proof that the “Big Guy” was directly involved in his addicted son’s international racket, since 2019, Wray’s FBI refused to launch an investigation.
To the contrary, Wray’s FBI colluded with Big Tech to ban reporting of the laptop’s contents just weeks before Election Day 2020. Photos, emails, and other correspondence directly contradicted Joe Biden’s public denials of his knowledge about Hunter Biden’s “business” deals, facts that could have swayed the already rigged election results.
One Armed Raid, One Voluntary Search
But nothing comes close to the disparity between the FBI’s handling of Trump’s alleged possession of so-called classified documents versus Joe Biden’s longtime hoarding of similar files. Wray’s FBI, over the objection of lower-level FBI officials, executed a search warrant of Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022. At least 30 armed FBI agents from two field offices rummaged through Trump’s residence for nine hours. The private suite of Melania Trump and bedroom of Barron Trump were ransacked despite no evidence classified papers were hidden in either place. The FBI raid plan included the bureau’s “use of lethal force” policy.
But the FBI’s search for classified files at the Biden home did not require armed agents with authorization to shoot-to-kill if necessary. Two “voluntary” searches yielded national security documents, material Biden was never authorized to take as vice president. And while Trump faced a 40-count federal criminal indictment in southern Florida, Biden’s condition as an “elderly man with a poor memory” allowed him to evade prosecution.
There are of course many other examples of Wray’s brazen politicking: arresting pro-life activists, spying on parents protesting woke policies at school board meetings, abusing warrantless surveillance tools for partisan purposes.
This represents the shameful legacy of Christopher Wray. A recent Gallup poll showed the FBI has the lowest approval rating in history; less than one-quarter of Republicans trust the FBI, a stunning figure from the party of law and order.
And all of the self-aggrandizing bloviating in the world can’t cover Wray’s disgraceful performance as director of the FBI.
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Julie Kelly is an independent journalist covering the weaponization of the U.S. Government against her citizens, Follow Kelly on Twitter / X.
