Who is Christopher Wray, the FBI director who (probably) authorised the search of Mar-a-Lago?

Christopher Wray has been a regular donor to Republican candidates throughout his career

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The search by FBI agents of former president Donald Trump’s home was an unprecedented event in the agency’s history, and one that would have almost certainly required the sign-off from the very top.

While the agency has so far declined to comment, much of the anger and attention over the search has now fallen on FBI director Christopher Wray, the person who likely authorised the operation.

A day after the search, Republicans rounded on the 55-year-old former justice department official, demanding that he answer to Congress for giving the green light to search the former president’s residence.

Congressman Mike Turner of Ohio, the top GOP lawmaker on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, demanded Mr Wray appear before Congress to answer questions.

“Congress deserves immediate answers from you as to the actions you ordered,” Mr Turner wrote in a letter to the FBI director.

Jim Jordan, the Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee, called for Mr Wray to “come to the House Judiciary Committee this Friday and answer our questions about this action today, which has never happened in American history.”

There were even calls to “defund the FBI” from some of Mr Trump’s most fervent supporters, and allegations of a deep state conspiracy.

So, who is Chrstopher Wray?

Perhaps the most pertinent fact about the FBI director, especially amid allegations that he is part of an orchestrated political campaign against the former president, is that he was appointed by Mr Trump.

His appointment came after Mr Trump ousted the former FBI director James Comey, who was in the process of a criminal investigation into whether Mr Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia to help him win the 2016 election.

When announcing the appointment in 2017, Mr Trump described Mr Wray as “a man of impeccable credentials.”

“I am proud to announce Christopher as my choice as the director of the FBI,” Trump said in a statement at the time. “He is an impeccably qualified individual, and I know that he will again serve his country as a fierce guardian of the law and model of integrity.”

A lifelong Republican, Mr Wray previously served as an assistant attorney general working under Mr Comey from 2003 to 2005 during the tenure of former President George W. Bush. During that time, he led the task force charged with investigating the Enron scandal.

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He was also one of several Justice Department officials who, in 2004, threatened to resign over concerns about the legality of the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretaps.

"Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but before you guys all pull the rip cords, please give me a heads-up so I can jump with you," he told his colleague Mr Comey, according to a report in the Washington Post.

When he left government in 2005, he went into private practice as a litigation partner at King & Spalding. During that time he represented former New Jersey governor Chris Christie during the so-called “bridge-gate” scandal.

Throughout his career, he has been a regular donor to Republican candidates, among them Mitt Romney, John McCain and David Purdue.

Those donations drew scrutiny from some Democrats when he was first appointed. Senator ​​Jeff Merkley, Democratic senator from Oregon, said at the time that Mr Wray “doesn’t pass the test” required of FBI directors being above partisan politics. Citing his donations to Republicans and his representation of Mr Christie.

Nonetheless, Mr Wray was officially confirmed by the Senate on 1 August, 2017; the vote was 92–5.

Compared with the political firestorms that engulfed his predecessor, Mr Wray’s tenure atop the FBI has been relatively lowkey — until yesterday.

Perhaps the biggest challenge the agency has faced since Mr Wray started was the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021. The FBI has come under close scrutiny for its failure to adequately assess the security threat posed by Mr Trump’s supporters that day, despite ample warning signs.

Mr Wray used his first public comments after the Capitol attack, while appearing before Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2021, to defend the agency’s handling of January 6 and to warn of the rising threat of domestic terrorism.

"Unfortunately, January 6 was not an isolated event," he said. "The problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long time now, and it’s not going away anytime soon."

He added that the number of FBI domestic terrorism investigations has doubled since he took office in 2017 to more than 2,000.

The FBI is still working through a huge backlog of hundreds of cases related to the attack on the US Capitol — an investigation that has taken up a huge amount of resources.

In his most recent appearance before Congress, Mr Wray was questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee about domestic terrorism and violent crime.

“The range of criminal and national security threats that we face as a nation has never been greater or more diverse, and the demands and expectations on the FBI have never been higher,” he said.

He added that “the violent crime problem is real” in the United States, and that an FBI task force dedicated to combatting it had made 17,000 arrests in the last year.

Just five days after his appearance, FBI agents were knocking at the door at Mar-a-Lago.