Christopher Wray Sticks It to Donald Trump

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By resigning as FBI director prior to the end of his 10-year tenure, Christopher Wray has thwarted Donald Trump’s plans to install the odious Kash Patel as FBI chief.

New York Times: “By stepping down now, as the conservative writer Erick Erickson observed, Wray has created a ‘legal obstacle to Trump trying to bypass the Senate confirmation process.’”

“Here’s why. According to the Vacancies Reform Act, if a vacancy occurs in a Senate-confirmed position, the president can temporarily replace that appointee (such as the F.B.I. director) only with a person who has already received Senate confirmation or with a person who’s served in a senior capacity in the agency (at the GS-15 pay scale) for at least 90 days in the year before the resignation.”

“Kash Patel, Donald Trump’s chosen successor at the F.B.I., meets neither of these criteria. He’s not in a Senate-confirmed position, and he’s not been a senior federal employee in the Department of Justice in the last year. That means he can’t walk into the job on Day 1.”

Would Patel Confirmation Make the Senate Culpable?

“The only reason to nominate someone like Patel to run the FBI is to commit impeachable abuses of power. Trump makes no secret that this is, in fact, his purpose. Patel is similarly explicit on the point. Yet the Senate might very well confirm the man once Trump removes the incumbent FBI director and nominates Patel to replace him. … If it actually does so, would that constitute ‘consent’ to impeachable offenses?”

Benjamin Wittes</h2>