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Updated at 10:17 a.m. ET on December 1, 2024
For more than four decades, before Donald Trump assumed the presidency, the FBI director occupied a position above politics. A new president could choose a political ally as attorney general, but the FBI director was different. An FBI director appointed by Richard Nixon also served under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. Carter’s choice remained in effect during Reagan’s second term, when Reagan appointed him to head the CIA. Reagan’s FBI appointee served during the presidency of George HW Bush and in the administration of Bill Clinton. Clinton fired the inherited official– the first time a president has fired an FBI director – only because the outgoing Bush administration left behind a Justice Department report accusing the director of ethical lapses. (Clinton tried to convince the corrupt director to resign of his own accord. Only after this persuasion attempt failed did Clinton act.)
And so that following in the 21st century. Except for a single case of serious scandal, Senate-confirmed FBI directors have remained in their positions until they resign or until their 10-year terms expire. Never, ever, ever has a Senate-confirmed FBI director been fired so the president can replace him with a loyalist. Republicans and Democrats alike agreed that we should not return to the days when J. Edgar Hoover granted special favors to presidents who perpetuated his power.
Even Donald Trump reluctantly submitted to this rule during his first term, as the Mueller report would later detail. Trump wanted to fire FBI Director James Comey to end the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. Trump’s advisers convinced Trump that acknowledging his true motives would spark a huge scandal. Instead, the new administration prompted the deputy attorney general to write a letter offering a more neutral-looking explanation: that Comey had mismanaged the office’s investigation into Hillary Clinton. This misleading rationalization – the Mueller report is authoritative refuted cover story did little to quell the outcry over Trump’s plan to appoint a henchman as FBI director. At the time, even Trump supporters still argued that the FBI director must be more than a presidential no-nonsense. Things only calmed down when Trump chose a politically independent candidate to replace Comey: Christopher Wray, who holds the position to date, retained during the four years of the Biden administration.
Yesterday, Trump announced on Truth Social that he intended to fire Wray and replace him with Kash Patel, someone known for his half-hearted deference to Trump’s wishes. How bad a choice is Patel? My colleague Elaina Plott Calabro reported that when President Trump “considered appointing Patel deputy director of the FBI, Attorney General Bill Barr confronted the White House chief of staff and said, ‘Over my dead body.’
But before we get to Patel’s demerits, we should dwell for another minute on the ominous danger posed by Trump’s desire to fire Wray.
FBI directors wield sweeping powers over Americans’ freedoms. The unwritten rule governing their appointment – no dismissal unless there is a compelling reason – has defended American law and freedom for half a century. Even in his first term, Trump did not dare to openly challenge him. But Trump begins his second term by trying to completely trash him. Much of the reporting on Trump’s announcement reveals a society already bent to Trump’s will: something that was considered shockingly unacceptable in 2017 – treating an FBI director as a mere Trump aide – has been semi-normalized even before President-elect Trump took office.
Wray’s firing is the real scandal. Patel’s odious appointment coats and sprinkles indignation.
Perhaps Patel’s nomination will fail, as will Trump’s attempt to install Matt Gaetz as attorney general. If Patel hesitates, Trump may turn to a slightly more respectable candidate. This second candidate could be greeted with relief. But the essential harm will be caused by firing Wray, not hiring Patel (or whoever ultimately gets the job). Already, barely a month after the closest election in terms of popular vote in two generations, we are witnessing, within law enforcement and national security agencies, a tendency by Trump to trash institutions and to replace them with whims. Trump declares his intention to reinvent the FBI as something it has never been before: an instrument of personal presidential power, which will investigate (or refrain from investigating) and bring charges (or refrain from bringing accusations) as the president wishes.
For Defense Secretary Trump chose an ideological eccentric whose own mother accused him in writings about repeated abuse of women. (She later disavowed these statements.) At the CIA, Trump wanna a hyper-partisan who, as director of national intelligence for Trump’s first term, selectively declassified information to discredit Trump’s political opponents. For his second term as director of national intelligence, Trump wanna a longtime defender of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine.
Merit, competence, integrity: none of that matters. Or rather, these good qualities seem to be active disqualifiers. Trump’s picks are selected solely for their obedience.
Now comes the big test: Is the American constitutional system as fragile as Trump hopes? Will Wray meekly accept the firing or defend the office against Trump’s second, more audacious attempt to subvert it? Will Senate Republicans ratify Trump’s attack on the separation of law enforcement and politics? Will federal courts grant warrants to an FBI that seeks warrants and makes arrests because the president asked it to? Will the slim Republican majority in the House support or resist Trump’s attempt to create a personal police force? Does an independent press survive sufficiently outside the control of pro-Trump oligarchs to explain what is happening and why it matters? Will public care be enough? Will there be enough people to react?
The American people voted for cheaper eggs. They will only have noise, conflict and chaos. What Trump is trying to do, if he succeeds, will constitute a constitutional scandal far greater than Watergate. If he succeeds, the takeover of power he unsuccessfully attempted in 2021 could be underway in 2025.