Vance confirms Trump interviewing candidates to replace Wray as head of the FBI
By Victor Nava and
David Spector
Published Nov. 19, 2024, 4:12 p.m. ET
Vice President-elect JD Vance let slip Tuesday that President-elect Donald Trump is interviewing candidates to take over the FBI before the current director’s term is up during a heated X exchange over President Biden’s lame-duck judicial nominee confirmations.
The revelation was buried in a response by Vance to a now-deleted post by Steve Bannon’s War Room CFO Grace Chong, who had blasted the Ohio senator for missing a vote where a controversial Biden judicial appointee, Embry J. Kidd, had been confirmed.
“You guys better show up and do your one fricken job!! @JDVance @marcorubio,” Chong posted, name-checking Trump’s VP-elect and secretary of state-designate.
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Vice President-elect JD Vance revealed he and Trump are interviewing candidates to take over the FBI.
Vance shot back by calling Chong a “mouth breathing imbecile” before going on to reveal that he and Trump were meeting with potential candidates to lead the bureau.
“When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director. I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49-46 rather than 49-45,” Vance posted.
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The Ohio senator later deleted the X post in which he made the revelation.
The bureau is currently headed by Christopher Wray, whose ten-year term doesn’t expire until 2027.
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Vance posted that he was meeting with Trump and FBI director candidates during the vote to appoint a 11th Circuit Court judge.Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Wray, 57, was installed in the position by Trump in August 2017, but has since invoked the president-elect’s wrath over what Trump sees as political investigations against him, such as the infamous Mar-a-Lago raid in August 2022.
In July, Wray questioned whether Trump had truly been struck by a bullet at the Butler Pa. rally where a would-be assassin shot him in the ear.
Trump claimed the FBI director’s remarks prove that “he knows nothing about the terrorists and other criminals pouring into our Country at record levels.”
The 45th president went on to claim in a July 25 Truth Social post that investigators “never even checked” his ear.
“No wonder the once storied FBI has lost the confidence of America!” Trump added.
Trump, 78, has also accused Wray of “lying to Congress” about his awareness of President Biden’s cognitive and physical decline.
“Wray said that ‘it is not something I observed during my interactions with him, which were uneventful and unremarkable,’ essentially stating that he found nothing wrong, mentally or physically, with ‘Joe,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “If that is the case, Director Wray should resign immediately from the FBI.”
The 45th president argued that “anybody can see that Joe Biden is cognitively and physically challenged, and if you can’t see that, you sure as hell can’t be running the FBI.”
Former Pentagon official Kash Patel, who was believed to be in contention for the top CIA post before it was given to former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, has been rumored as a possible option to replace Wray at the FBI.
Patel, 44, has written about the need to dismantle the Justice Department and do an overhaul of the intelligence agencies, including the FBI, by firing their “top ranks.”
“[T]he FBI has become so thoroughly compromised that it will remain a threat to the people unless drastic measures are taken,” Patel wrote in his book, “Government Gangsters.”
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Trump appointed Christopher Wray at FBI Director in 2017.REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
During his campaign, Trump described Patel’s book as a “blueprint” for his second term in the White House.
Also believed to be a contender for the FBI directorship is former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, who spent 14 years in Congress, the last four as chair of the House Intelligence Committee.
Rogers, 61, was narrowly defeated earlier this month by Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin for the Senate seat vacated by retiring Democrat Debbie Stabenow.
The FBI and the Trump-Vance transition team did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
