Why Would Biden Keep Wray?
Let me open by saying that, when 81,268,757 voted for Biden, many of whom openly only did so to get rid of Trump, I had no idea they actually wanted Biden to keep some of Trump’s most corrupt appointments. Christopher Wray was only appointed director of the FBI after Trump fired James Comey on 5/9/2017 under very questionable circumstances, and since then has been little more than a yes-man for Trump’s anti-China propaganda in all but the most unreasonable situations.
However, on 12/2/2020, a member of Biden’s transition team confirmed that Biden had no intention of firing Wray. On 1/21/2021, this was confirmed by “White House sources” who told this information to CNN that morning.
Of course, the Biden administration must have known this was a horrible move, hence why they left Press Secretary Jen Psaki unable to defend this decision — and I mean that rather literally. Here is what Psaki told the Press during her first meeting on 1/20/2021, the same day Biden was inaugurated, when Peter Alexander of NBC asked if Biden had confidence in Wray:
Peter Alexander: If I could follow up on that a little bit, Jen, is the President being updated, first of all, in the progress of the FBI investigation? And we know the FBI is leading the investigation into the assault on the Capitol. Does President Biden have confidence in FBI Director Wray?
Jen Psaki: Well, Peter, as you noted, there’s an ongoing investigation, which we certainly support. I’m not sure that he has received an update today on anything about the investigation, but we certainly support those ongoing. And we will I’m sure be receiving updates in the days ahead.
Peter Alexander: Does he have confidence in the FBI director?
Jen Psaki: I think. I have not spoken with him about specifically FBI Director Wray in recent days, Peter, but I’ll circle back with you if there’s more to convey.
One cannot help but notice that Alexander had to ask the question twice in order to get his answer. However, the answer he did get barley qualifies as what he was looking for.
Think about what she is saying: Biden has not talked to his own Press Secretary about what is bound to be one of the most controversial moves in his administration among his base. While Biden’s Executive Orders on climate change, immigration, and COVID-19 are controversial among many who did not vote for him, his choice to keep Wray would be controversial primarily among those who voted for him in the first place.
Yes, Wray denied Trump’s nonsense allegations of voter fraud and said white nationalists are a domestic terror threat. If those are the only two things you know about Wray, this decision might seem like a good idea. However, Wray’s record shows that he is not the friend of Biden some seem to believe he is.
On 2/13/2018, Wray told the Senate Select Committee On Intelligence that Chinese students at various schools were “exploiting the very open research and development environment that we have” to engage in espionage for the Chinese Government. He went on to call this “not just a [risk to the] whole of government threat but a whole of society threat.” In 7/7/2020, Wray called China the “greatest long-term threat” to the United States.
Wray went on to say:
[T]he FBI is now opening a new China-related counterintelligence case every 10 hours. Of the nearly 5,000 active counterintelligence cases currently under way across the country, almost half are related to China.
Wray specifically listed the 2017 Equifax Data Breach and the 2015 Anthem Medical Data Breach as examples of hacks done by China. In both cases, there is little evidence to back up this idea. The idea Anthem was done by China comes from a Bloomberg article which says they might have been involved. And Equifax was infamously the example of mismanagement on the part of those running the corporation, including them not updating their infrastructure after the Department of Homeland Security warned them. Now it is true that those hacks were connected to a small number of members of the People’s Liberation Army, to say that therefore it was planned by the Chinese government is still a rather wide leap.
Wray is a China hawk, Biden keeping him is no different than him keeping Peter Navarro.
The main reason Biden would even consider doing such a thing is as some bad attempt at “unity.” During the Obama administration, he gave the Defense Department as well as much of the intelligence agency to the Republicans. All it did was backfire, with those same people either getting attacked for the same nonsense reasons Obama was (the bullshit “friend of Hamas” rumor about Republican Senator Chuck Hagel) or betrayed him (Comey opening another investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails just before the 2016 election). Obama keeping Robert Gates and Robert Mulluer as heads of the Defense Department and FBI just made his administration worse.
I say Biden, instead of worrying about if he can make his administration appeal to Republicans (they think he’s going to put them into concentration camps), instead worrying about draining Trump’s swamp.
