The man Donald Trump hand-picked to clean the deep state out of the FBI has lost Trump’s confidence. FBI Director Christopher Wray appears to be one tweet away from finding his name next to James Comey, Peter Strzok and the “lovely Lisa Page”—all because he’s not toeing the Trump line on declaring his own agency evil.
When Trump’s freshly selected attorney general appeared before the House and dropped the word “spying” in connection with the FBI’s actions in the 2016 election, a lot of people objected. Including Wray. But Trump loved it. It was clear that William Barr used the word with intent, and that intent was part of the scheme that has since led to Trump authorizing Barr to go anywhere, read anything, and declassify as he pleases; all to “prove” that the real scandal here isn’t Russian involvement in the 2016 election, but that someone tried to stop it.
Wray had the bad taste to disagree with Barr’s term, saying in a May hearing that it wasn’t language he would use and that he was unaware of any inappropriate surveillance. As The Hill reports, that has put the FBI director firmly on the path to become one of the many, many, many former members of the Trump White House.
Asked about Wray on Monday, Trump refused to say that he had confidence in his FBI director. Instead he would only comment that he disagreed with Wray’s refusal to join in accusations against his own agency. Asked about Wray’s statement that spying had not taken place, Trump replied, “I mean, I disagree with him on that and I think a lot of people are disagreeing. You may even disagree with him on that.” Or not.
Actually, Trump’s statement might be seen as something of an upgrade from his reaction immediately after Wray’s testimony. At that time he declared that in refusing to go along with the “spying” term, the FBI director was “ridiculous.” Because, said Trump, Barr’s term was “perfect.” The darker sign for Wray is that Trump now refuses to give any opinion on Wray’s tenure as FBI director. And Trump refused to say whether Wray still had his confidence in that role.
Donald Trump extendeth his trust. Donald Trump taketh that trust away. Really, really quickly.