'Obeying in advance': Wray accused of 'making things easy for Trump' by abruptly resigning

11 December 2024

On Wednesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray announced that he would be resigning from his post after President Joe Biden's term ends on January 20, 2025. His decision has been met with swift condemnation from various experts, journalists, commentators and activists.

Wray's resignation is particularly noteworthy as FBI directors serve 10-year terms and cannot be easily replaced by a new president. Then-President Donald Trump appointed Wray in 2017, and he continued to serve under Biden after he took office in 2021. Wray could have served in that role through the bulk of Trump's second term had he chosen to remain in his position.

"In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray," he told the FBI's rank-and-file. "It should go without saying but I'll say it anyway — this is not easy for me. I love our mission and I love our people — but my focus is, and always has been, on us and doing what's right for the FBI."

Bowdoin College political science professor Andrew Rudalevige disagreed with Wray's argument, countering: "This does not 'protect' the Bureau — just the opposite."

"[Wray] is undermining the post-Watergate reforms that sought to place the FBI and DOJ above partisanship," he wrote.

President-elect Trump celebrated Wray's resignation on Truth Social as "a great day for America," telling his millions of followers that the FBI "illegally raided my home [after he refused multiple requests to hand over classified documents]" and "worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me." Attorney and writer Luppe B. Luppen, who posts as "nycsouthpaw" on X and Bluesky, observed: "If Chris Wray thought advance compliance with the incoming authoritarian regime's wishes would earn him a handshake and a graceful exit, he miscalculated even in that."

In a post to Bluesky, Renato Mariotti — who was a federal prosecutor between 2007 and 2016 — lamented that the outgoing FBI director was simply greasing the skids for Trump. He pointed out that Wray could have stayed on in his role for over two more years.

"It is not normal for a president-elect to threaten to fire the FBI Director," he wrote. "Wray could have stayed on until Trump [fired] him, but he is making things easy for Trump."

Ian Bassin, who is the founder and executive director of the organization Protect Democracy, referenced author Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny" book, in which he encourages those fighting against authoritarian regimes to not "obey in advance." He urged Wray and others who have resigned ahead of Trump's inauguration to rethink their decisions.

"To Jack Smith, Chris Wray, and anyone else thinking of just obeying in advance: STOP," he wrote on Bluesky. "Our system depends on there being a political cost for breaking things. If Trump wants to fire the FBI Director or fire the Special Counsel prosecuting him, make him do it. Stop doing his work for him!"

American University assistant professor David Ryan Miller wrote that Wray is "just the latest political elite whose reaction to Trump's win and pre-inaugural attempts to break what remains of the institutions and the rule of law is to throw up his hands and let Trump have his way," and added: "The 'compliance in advance' of the political class has been deeply disappointing."

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