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125 Keeping Chris Christie’s Bridgegate Lawyer as FBI Director Was President Joe’s First Mistake

January 29, 2021

UPDATE: This chapter appears solid too. Substance is there-don’t think needs any improvement or addition. The bottom link on William Barnett-we now have new info on that… But this chapter is there

UPDATE 2.0: It’s like Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way

Wow-that didn’t take long. That President Biden is keeping Christopher Wray on as FBI Director isn’t very surprising-I’d expected it-but it’s still no less disappointing. But it’s totally in line with the Dems’ historic timidity regarding all matters FBI. Just like that the long history of the FBI being run by Republicans continues-technically Wray is an “independent” but then again this is Chris Christie’s Bridgegate lawyer. Still in-the FBI’s now going on 115 year history-we’ve never had a Democratic Director.

So presumably by the end of Wray’s tenure-which would be 2029-hopefully the first term of a President Kamala Harris!-we will by then have 120 years of the FBI without a single Democratic FBI Director.

FN: As I documented in Chapter Mensch, Schindler banned me from his gated tweets-that I’d paid for-for pointing out this banal fact-he dismissed the point as some of the GOP Director have been picked by Democrats-which is about as meaningful as pointing out that though we have never had a female President, millions of women vote for male nominees every 4 years so-there’s no sexism.

I didn’t expect Joe to fire him though I’d really hoped to be surprised. I’d hoped he’d take EmptyWheel’s-not entirely serious-suggestion of appointing Jeanne Rhee though I presumed this was pretty much impossible. If anything was a surprise it was how quick it happened-on day two in the WH, Joe confirmed he was keeping Wray.

When Ms. Wheeler first tweeted this I was quite taken leading me to tweet about this “proposal” multiple times before the Inauguration.

 

 

But in reality she meant this not as a serious proposal but a bluff- her premise here is that we wanted  to keep Wray-threatening Rhee would persuade Trump and Friends not to fire him. This was how most Democrats saw it-even Adam Schiff-that keeping Wray was preferable, optimal.

I had taken EW’s proposal more seriously than she did-most Dems seemed to think keeping Wray was optimal. Personally I had always wanted Joe to fire him-though I was also never terribly optimistic. In this preference I wasn’t wholly alone.

 

But again I was never optimistic figuring Joe would fall into the usual Dem “institutionalist” canard-just as Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter had done. And the suspense didn’t last too long-keeping Wray on was almost his first official act upon being sworn in-basically the opposite of what me and Mr. Zaheed hoped.

After Biden’s very quick announcement he was keeping Wray- again it was almost literally his first act upon taking Office post Inauguration there was an outpouring of relief and gratitude among many Dems. Again even Adam Schiff of all people.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed on Twitter that Biden “intends to keep FBI Director Wray on in his role and he has confidence in the job he is doing.” Psaki said she caused an “unintentional ripple” on Wednesday when she said she had not spoken to the president about Wray.

Biden’s decision to retain Wray as FBI chief was welcomed by Adam Schiff, the Democrat who chairs the House Intelligence Committee and a critic of Trump’s handling of intelligence issues.

“Christopher Wray became FBI director at a moment of tremendous turmoil for the bureau and the country, and he has served with great professionalism and integrity. I am glad to see that President Biden intends to keep Director Wray in his position,” Schiff said.

Schiff said he looked forward to working with Wray on analyses of “intelligence and security failures that led to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, and the need to dramatically expand the focus and resources devoted to the threat of domestic terrorism.”

His approval was particularly ironic seeing his own frustrating history with Christopher Wray.

Why Schiff-of all people-is celebrating this is pretty tough to understand-other than the Dems preference to be as diffident as possible when it comes to questions regarding the FBI.

UPDATE: See Chapter Working the Refs

After all, it was Schiff who’d revealed that FBI briefings on the counterintel investigation stopped when Wray took over yet he’s celebrating Wray getting to keep his job?

“House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff threatened to subpoena FBI Director Christopher Wray for what he says is the bureau’s failure to inform Congress about the status of a counterintelligence investigation into links between President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia.”

“We’re running out of patience,” said Schiff Wednesday, who added he’s been seeking the information for months and has been rebuffed, despite requirements that the FBI keep Congress apprised of counterintelligence matters. He said the FBI has issued boilerplate non-responses to his inquiries and that he’ll issue a subpoena soon if they don’t produce more information.”

Wray clearly didn’t take him seriously and has been proven right-Schiff recovered his patience pretty easily-to the point that he sent out a celebratory statement on the second day of Joe’s Presidency when he assured Wray he was safe. But then again, Dem patience with Trumpland the FBI is apparently bottomless

FN: Obama’s former DOJ Spokesman Matthew Miller had implored them to rethink their  obsequious attitude  towards the FBI to no avail see chapter Matthew Miller

End FN

Ok I get it-keeping the FBI Director for his-just as we’ve never had a Democratic FBI Director, we’ve never had a female Director-entire term is a norm but some norms deserve to be broken. Indeed, Trump already has. After the way the GOPers at the FBI stole the 2016 election I don’t think it’s ‘too partisan’ of us to ask for the first Democratic FBI Director in 112 years and counting-it will be 120 by the end of Wray’s term.

In August 2021, Senator Ron Wyden called out Wray’s FBI for clear favoritism to Congressional GOPers and committees-much as Comey had shown in 2016.

“A top senator is accusing the FBI of keeping Democrats in the dark about the agency’s disclosures to Republican-led Senate committees, revealing that the FBI later made a mea culpa and pledged not to repeat the apparent violations of congressional oversight norms.”

“Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Monday that the bureau was improperly providing documents and other information to Republicans, sometimes without even informing Democrats of their existence.”

In chapter Unreported Background we looked out how Roger Stone in his own book on 2016 noted that Comey only sent his Comey Letter to the Republicans. Again-the FBI is a very Republican place aka Trumpland aka GOPland.

“I am deeply concerned that by violating its own policies the FBI is again succumbing to political pressure from Republicans to damage the Democratic presidential candidate,” Wyden wrote in his letter, obtained by POLITICO.

“Providing documents to committee majorities without disclosure to the minority is unacceptable,” Wyden later added. “Providing access to documents for review by Republican staffers without notice to, or inclusion of, Democratic staff is also unacceptable.”

Unacceptable but part of long FBI practice going back at least 1992-see Chapter The FBI is a Very Republican Place

“Wyden’s letter is the latest salvo in the ongoing partisan battle over Senate Republicans’ investigations targeting top Obama administration officials, including the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden.”

“The senator cited an Aug. 7 letter from the FBI’s congressional affairs director stating that the agency has “surged resources in order to expedite the processing” of the GOP requests for information related to the Trump transition team. According to Wyden, the letter also states that the FBI’s compliance is due to “extraordinary and unique circumstances, and should not be construed as precedent setting in any regard.”

Yes-“extraordinary and unique circumstances”-indeed. Any time the GOP Congress wants something the circumstances are “extraordinary and unique”-remember when Comey called Trey Gowdy’s demands for info they could use against Hillary  a “500 year flood?”

OTOH Putin interfering in a US election to elect Trump-with the Trump campaign’s fulsome collusion-that’s not an extraordinary or unique circumstance-that only applies to Republican demands.

At the time the FBI claimed this sort of thing wasn’t going to happen again.

Wyden said FBI congressional affairs staffers “described these circumstances as an oversight that will be remedied going forward.” He also said that in a staff-level phone call earlier this month, those FBI aides “declined to discuss” whether the agency had determined that the Republicans’ investigations serve a valid legislative purpose.

“Nonetheless, the representatives of the FBI stated that providing this sort of highly sensitive information to committees without clear jurisdiction over such matters was indeed extraordinary and would not be repeated in the future,” Wyden added.

Well that’s it then-I know I’m reassured.

 And by the way, why would these FBI aides possibly “decline to discuss” wether they had determined if the GOP co-conspirator investigations served a valid legislative purpose if they did? Isn’t this stuff about declining to discuss proof that the Republican investigations didn’t pass this test? If they had determined they did the GOP leaning FBI aides-the whole point of this book is that the entire agency is GOP leaning-would be happy to use that talking point.

Again this was August 2020. If you found those assurances from the FBI at the time this wouldn’t happen again reassuring, you might want to sit down for this one. As Brittany Spears would say-if she were Director of the FBI-oops I did it again. 

“Senator Sheldon Whitehouse on Wednesday criticized the FBI for a lack of transparency with Congress, saying “it’s not tolerable” to have an agency that isn’t answering lawmakers’ questions about its actions. His comments come a day after he slammed FBI Director Christopher Wray for failing to answer written questions from lawmakers in hearings involving FBI witnesses over the last four years.”

“It’s just not tolerable to have an agency of government, least of all a law enforcement agency, that won’t answer questions for years at a time about its conduct,” Whitehouse, a Democrat, told “Red & Blue” anchor Elaine Quijano.

This was in March 2021-8 months after the FBI had told Wyden “it won’t happen agai”‘ and 2 months after Biden in basically his first official act assured Wray he got to keep his job.

If the FBI does not improve its process for responding to questions from the legislature, Whitehouse said he would consider withholding appropriations and stalling nominees, as well as other tools of “legislative persuasion.”

Whitehouse grilled Wray about the FBI’s responsiveness during a Tuesday Senate hearing on the Capitol assault. In response, Wray cited an “elaborate interagency process for responding to questions,” but said he would “do what I can to improve the process.” He said he’s as “frustrated” as lawmakers are and agreed that “we need to get better.”

Now it’s we need to get better. Maybe pretend Schiff-Wyden-Whitehouse are Republicans-then the process would be much improved. Meanwhile it never gets better-if you’re not a member of the Republican party.

At least Whitehouse didn’t sound snowed.

When asked if he has faith that the FBI will change its practices, Whitehouse told Quijano, “No, they’re going to have to prove it to me.”

That was almost 2 years ago-have they proved it to him yet? I don’t think so.

However, Whitehouse and Wyden are relative outliers-far more willing to challenge the conventional savvy wisdom than most of the Congressional Dems-in either House. Most are still inclined to take anything Wray and his FBI say at face value-even those like Schiff who should know better based on their knowledge and experience.

Regarding the paradox that most of these powerful, elected Dems continue to treat them as this “nonpartisan, independent” institution when the history-indeed, going back to J. Edgar-shows they’ve always been the opposite it’s important to disentangle a few things.

FN: Note we only scratched the surface above, we didn’t discuss subpoenaing Apple for the phone records of top Congressional Democrats much less when Wray’s FBI tabled the investigation into Brett Kavanaugh.

FN: See Chapter Working the Refs

During the Trump years it was a reasonable concern that If Trump got rid of Wray  he would replace him with someone worse-though Wray wasn’t great on his own terms as the above shows.

Wray was probably the best we could expect during the Trump years but with Biden’s election it was time to aim higher. Yet many didn’t-they seemed to have fallen into the trap of

1. Wanting someone just because Trump didn’t want him

2. Failing to appreciate that while Wray was the best we could get under Trump that doesn’t mean he’s the best we can do-quite the opposite.

In conclusion, keeping Christopher Wray-aka Christie’s Bridgegate lawyer-was President Biden’s first mistake-again in fact it was also basically his first official act. It was far from his only one-he still hasn’t removed DeJoy

FN: Dont tell me Bden can’t remove DeJoy-where there’s a will there’s a way. I’m skeptical the reason DeJoy is here is because he’s somehow impossible to fire-nothing prevented Joe from firing Wray-or James Murray and Tony Ornato-yet he didn’t. So one can’t but wonder if he’d have fired DeJoy no matter how difficult it supposedly is. If the position of Postmaster is literally impossible to terminate then maybe it’s too powerful a position. But in truth I don’t believe it-if DeJoy isn’t gone it’s because Biden lacks the political will for it-worrying it will look mean.

The glass half full is that it’s not too late-it’s never too late to fire Christopher Wray-or DeJoy. Murray and Ornato are finally gone-though they were not-alas-fired. But it’s not too late to take back their pension either-or any law enforcement or military officials who in any way colluded with January 6.

Or for that matter all known rogue FBI agents known to have leaked about Weiner’s laptop in October, 2016-all should be fired and Andy McCabed-see Chapter Bill E. Buckner for more

 

UPDATE:

Ex-FBI agent Peter Strzok can now depose Trump after appeals court rules against Biden DOJ after went to bat for former president (msn.com)

 

 

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