Incoming Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) told FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday he has a “vote of no confidence” in his leadership, saying it’s time for him to “move on.”
The 11-page listing of grievances from Grassley signals his support for President-elect Trump to fire Wray, who beme the FBI director in 2017 after his nomiation by then-President Trump. Wray is serving a 10-year term that would keep him in the post until 2027 if Trump lept him.
“For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives,” Grassley wrote, faulting Wray for hindering his work by failing to respond to requests and having “prevented the truth on some issues from ever reaching the American people.”
Trump has announced his intention to nominate Kash Patel as FBI director. Grassley held off on supporting Patel for the role.
“I therefore must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI. President-elect Trump has already announced his intention to nominate a candidate to replace you, and the Senate will carefully consider that choice. For my part, I’ve also seen enough, and hope your respective successors will learn from these failures,” Grassley concluded.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Grassley framed the letter as an “opportunity to tell you where you went wrong, for the benefit of the Bureau and that of your successor.”
Much of the letter complains about how the FBI handled the investigations into President-elect Trump and Hillary Clinton, matters that predated Wray’s leadership of the FBI.
Grassley also criticized the search of Trump’s home ahead of the Justice Department bringing its classified documents case against him, complaining that “no such raid took place at Hillary Clinton’s premises, even though she and her staff mishandled highly classified information.”
Grassley complained that “no such raid” occurred at President Biden’s house during his classified documents probe. Biden, however, was the one that alerted authorities to the documents, whereas Trump resisted multiple times when asked to return the records recovered from his home.
Grassley pointed to information he disclosed that was provided by an FBI informant claiming that Biden accepted a bribe. The informant, Alexander Smirnov, was later arrested and charged with providing false information to the bureau.
Smirnov allegedly fabricated the story due to political animosity towards Biden, but his claims nonetheless were central to a House GOP investigation into the Biden family.
“The FBI under your watch, however, had possession of incriminating information against President Biden for three years until I exposed the existence of the record outlining those allegations, but did nothing to investigate it,” Grassley wrote in his letter.
The bureau, however, does appear to have investigated the matter as it serves as the basis of the false statement charges against Smirnov, who has also since been indicted on tax charges.
