FBI director nominee Christopher Wray prepares to testify during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 12, 2017, in Washington.
Christopher Wray pledged “strict independence” if confirmed to head the FBI, as senators focused on his ability to pursue investigations independently amid revelations about a meeting the president’s son held with a Russian lawyer during last year’s campaign.
“If I am given the honor of leading this agency, I will never allow the FBI’s work to be driven by anything other than the facts, the law, and the impartial pursuit of justice. Full stop,” Wray said at his confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Pushing back on President Donald Trump’s repeated dismissals of the federal Russia probe now led by special counsel Robert Mueller, Wray said, "I do not consider Director Mueller to be on a witch hunt."
The committee weighed Trump’s nomination of Wray to be director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation after Trump’s abrupt firing of James Comey in May. Wray would oversee FBI agents aiding Mueller’s probe into whether Trump or any of his associates colluded with Russia to meddle in last year’s U.
“It’s vitally important for the FBI Director to be independent,” Republican committee Chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa said of Wray in his opening remarks. “He’s prosecuted folks on both sides of the political spectrum, including folks working on a Republican campaign.”
Wray told Grassley that the only “right way do to the job” as head of the FBI is “with strict independence” and “certainly without regard to any partisan political influence.”
Saying No
Citing Comey’s firing, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee’s top Democrat, said Wray will need to show he’s prepared to stand up to Trump, who has dismissed the investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s campaign as a “witch hunt. Wray and the FBI pursue investigations with independence and vigor regardless of who may be implicated?" she said. “Will he tell the president no if improperly directed to pursue certain investigations?”
Asked by Feinstein if he would inform the Intelligence Committee of any “machinations to tamper” with Mueller’s investigation, Wray called the special counsel -- a former FBI director -- “the consummate straight shooter” and said any effort to tamper with his investigation would “be unacceptable and inappropriate and would need to be dealt with very sternly."
Wray’s independence is an issue because Comey testified before Congress that Trump repeatedly asked for his loyalty and suggested the FBI drop an investigation into Michael Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser. Flynn was forced out of his job after less than a month for misleading White House officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his discussions with Russia’s ambassador to the U. after the 2016 election.
Wray testified that nobody asked him for a loyalty pledge “and I sure as heck did not offer one.’’ He said he didn’t discuss Comey’s firing with anyone in the White House but did discuss it with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who said that the appointment of Mueller as special counsel “in effect made for a better landscape for me to consider taking this situation.”
Russian Lawyer
The hearing took place as Washington digested the news that Trump’s son, Donald Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, met before the election with a woman they had been told was a Russian government lawyer who would provide damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
Read More About How Trump’s Credibility Was Dealt a Blow by His Son’s Emails
The revelations, which followed Donald Trump Jr.’s decision to publish emails related to the meeting after inquiries and reports about it in the New York Times, conflicted with previous administration statements that campaign officials didn’t meet with Russian officials and raised fresh questions about whether any Trump associates colluded with Moscow.
Wray, who said he’s been busy preparing for the hearings, said he wasn’t familiar with the emails made public a day earlier.
Wray, 50, has a history of taking on politically tough assignments. A former Justice Department official who helped the U. respond to the Sept. 11 attacks, Wray represented Credit Suisse Group AG before its main unit pleaded guilty in 2014 and paid $2.6 billion for helping thousands of Americans evade taxes. He also represented New Jersey Governor Chris Christie in the so-called Bridgegate investigation of politically motivated traffic delays in 2013.
The Yale Law School graduate is likely to lean heavily on his previous experience when he was confirmed to head the Justice Department’s criminal division, where he served from September 2003 until May 2005. He also helped lead the Justice Department’s efforts to address a wave of corporate fraud scandals, overseeing the prosecutions of Enron Corp. and HealthSouth Corp., among other major investigations.
But Wray’s tenure at the Justice Department also became an issue. Senators asked what role he played in controversial counterterrorism programs put in place by President George W. Bush’s administration after the Sept. 11 attacks, including waterboarding.
Wray testified that “torture is wrong, it’s unacceptable, it’s illegal and I think it’s ineffective.
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