Congress set the FBI Director’s term in office at 10 years so there would be no President trying to politically influence the agency….
Problem…
President Trump let everybody know that the FBI boss works FOR the Executive Branch of the American government and thus can be fired anytime the President wants….
Donald Trump never trusted the FBI or anybody in the US Intelligence Community…His view was EVERYBODY in the US Government worked for HIM…If you didn’t ?
He wanted ya replaced with someone who did understand you worked for HIM…
We Now find that like James Comey….Who was fired….
President Trump wanted current FBI Director gone also….
Before the six years….
Only it didn’t go that way for Wray…..
Previously unreported details of the proposal reveal just how seriously the former president took his grievances against the intelligence and law enforcement establishment. It shows Trump at his mercurial peak, ordering up the removal of his own appointee in a fit of rage, only to back down when then-Attorney General William Barr threatened to resign if he followed through with the maneuver. (Aspects of this story were first reported by Business Insider.)
Trump’s ire at Wray was episodic, flaring up whenever the low-key FBI chief crossed his radar. Congressional testimony on Russia, always a sensitive subject, could provoke Trump’s anger. So could Wray’s pronouncements on election security or his defenses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a law the former president blamed for enabling Democrats’ supposed “spying” on his 2016 campaign. Trump also thought Wray was weak, according to one of the former Trump officials.
A former Trump White House official said Trump “had always flirted with the idea” of firing Wray. But back in April 2020, Trump’s zeal to oust Wray “was intense as it ever was and pretty constant then,” recalled another former senior Trump official. On this occasion, it’s unclear what exactly had sparked Trump’s anger. But at the time, the president had recently beaten back Democrats’ first effort to impeach him — and felt liberated, the officials said.
The problem with firing Wray, for a White House staffed with neophytes and riven with dissension, was just how to do it. Aides who were periodically tasked with engineering Wray’s dismissal had little idea how to pull off such a maneuver without creating massive political blowback, two former officials said. The Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI, had been rebuffing the White House’s demands to fire Wray, who was widely respected on Capitol Hill. And Trump, always easily distracted, rarely followed up his outbursts with action….
…
…The White House ultimately backed off on the plan once they realized Barr would quit, according to two of the former Trump officials.
“They were hoping it would be a fait accompli,” one said — and Barr would just make the personnel change happen.
One reason to place Evanina and Patel at the FBI, according to a former Trump administration official, was to have what the White House considered “trusted people” at those agencies….
Note…
Is this effort to salvage William Barr’s rep?
image…Voice of America/REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst