Early Wednesday morning, Donald Trump announced his pick for FBI director … sort of. Trump named Christopher Wray in a tweet, which was followed by hours of total silence from the crack White House communications team. Presumably they learned about Trump’s pick at the same time the rest of the world did.
Republicans naturally rushed out to promote the choice in glowing, highly specific terms:
It’s not clear why anyone would assume that, but King is a loyal Republican so that was probably the absolute least he could say.
Here are a couple things we do know about Wray, besides that he was Chris Christie’s Bridgegate lawyer: He’s a partner at a law firm that represents Rosneft, Russia’s national oil company. And another of that firm’s partners, Bobby Burchfield, is the outside ethics adviser in charge of vetting Trump Organization transactions for conflicts of interest while Trump is president. King and Spalding is a 900-lawyer firm, but both Wray and Burchfield are Washington, D.C.-based partners in the firm, and these connections are still an interesting place to start while we wait for the White House to get its act together and tell us what a great pick Wray is.