President Donald Trump named his nominee to head the FBI on Wednesday morning, choosing a man who used to work for the Department of Justice — and who once defended Chris Christie during “Bridgegate.”
Trump announced via Twitter that he will nominate Christopher A. Wray to the position, calling him “a man of impeccable credentials.”
I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2017
Wray, a former federal prosecutor, is a more traditional choice to head the FBI when compared to other names floated, such as former Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. The New York Times even described Wray — who served at the U.S. Department of Justice from 2001–2005, including a stint as Assistant Attorney General tasked with running the DOJ’s Criminal Division — as a “safe, mainstream pick.”
But Wray also comes with some baggage. He left the DOJ in 2005 to join the New Jersey firm King & Spalding, where he worked as white collar crime defense attorney representing several major businesses in the fields of health care, finance, and pharmaceuticals. The firm has been the source of several appointments within the Trump administration, and at least one of its staff members reportedly serves as an ethics adviser to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which Newsweek reports holds the president’s business assets.
Wray also had one unusually high-profile client: the bio on the King and Spalding website states that he represented New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie “in connection with investigations relating to the George Washington Bridge toll lane closings,” also known as Bridgegate.
The 2013 scandal, in which Christie shut down traffic on the bridge as an act of political retribution, resulted in the conviction of two former staffers for counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, and other charges. A civil complaint gave new life to the issue earlier this year, as did the revelation that Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law reportedly told one of the convicted staffers that the move was “kind of badass.”
Wray reportedly still has Christie’s cell phone from the Bridgegate era, which contains deleted text messages sent between Christie and his then-chief of staff. Christie himself has yet to be charged for the incident.
For his part, Christie heaped praise on Wray in a recent interview.
“I have the utmost confidence in Chris,” Christie told NJ.com last week. “He’s an outstanding lawyer. He has absolute integrity and honesty.”
Meanwhile, the last head of the FBI — James Comey — is set to testify before Congress on Thursday, where he is expected to provide details about how Trump allegedly asked him to end an FBI investigation into ties between Russia and then-national security adviser Michael T. Flynn. Trump told NBC News that he was considering the “Russia thing” when he fired Comey earlier this year, and reportedly described Comey to Russian officials as “a real nut job.”
Vanity Fair reported in May that Christie allegedly encouraged Trump to handle the Russia scandal the same way he did Bridgegate — by “conduct[ing] an internal investigation with his own lawyers” first — although a Christie spokesperson called the report “erroneous.”
The post was updated to include the ties between Wray’s firm and Trump’s trust.