Vice President-elect J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) has revealed that the Trump team is meeting with candidates to lead the FBI, a sign of plans to replace current Director Christopher Wray. be.
Vance's comments came amid a spat on social platform X as he faced criticism for absenting himself from the Senate vote to confirm President Biden's attorney general nominee.
“When this 11th Circuit vote took place, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple government positions, including the FBI director,” Vance wrote to X.
“I tend to think it's more important for Republicans to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for them to lose the vote 49-45, or 49-46,” he added. .
Trump has become a vocal critic of the FBI and its leaders, and nominated him for the job in 2017.
The FBI director's term is 10 years, and Wray typically won't leave the job until 2027, although the director can be fired by the president.
Among the names being floated as potential new directors is Kash Patel, who served as a national security official in the first Trump administration and currently sits on the board of Trump's media company.
Patel is a Trump supporter who sparked internal strife during President-elect Trump's first term, parroting Trump's view of the FBI as a weaponized agency that conducted improper investigations. Being chosen for the role would be controversial.
“The deep state cannot be trusted. They are weaponizing the government for their own political and personal ends,” Patel wrote in an email from his foundation last week, calling Trump's Russia and called the investigation into their relationship a “fraud.”
Former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner said President Trump's selection of loyalist and former Trump administration aide Kash Patel to lead the FBI would do “tremendous damage” to the agency.
“I believe it is very, very dangerous to put someone like Kash Patel in the position of FBI director because … his resume is not traditional,” Brunner said Sunday. Ta.
