F.B.I. Director Wants to Move Forward, but the President Is Making His Job Harder
WASHINGTON — When President Trump tapped Christopher A. Wray to be his next F.B.I. director, it signaled a clear break from the tenure of James B. Comey, whom Mr. Trump had grown to distrust and eventually fired.
It seemed Mr. Trump would let his handpicked F.B.I. director do his work unimpeded, giving Mr. Wray some breathing room. “I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity,” the president said in June.
But nearly five months since Mr. Wray started the job, Mr. Trump has not made his life easier as the director seeks to restore the public’s confidence in the country’s premier law enforcement agency — one that the president says is in “Tatters.”
Mr. Trump’s verbal assaults have put Mr. Wray and his leadership team in a difficult position. Mr. Wray is trying to move past his predecessor’s era and make sure there is not a whiff of politics at the F.B.I. He has promised the F.B.I.’s work would be based on the “facts, the law and the impartial pursuit of justice. Period.”
Yet Mr. Trump and his allies in Congress are making that task much harder.
Current and former F.B.I. officials say Mr. Trump’s criticisms, and those of normally supportive Republican members of Congress, have damaged morale in some quarters of the bureau. Senior agents have expressed fear that if their names appear in the media, they will be singled out for attack by politicians.
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