Trump Says FBI Director Wray Is Not the Man to Fix the FBI

Inspector General Michael Horowitz’ has been released and has made global headlines. The IG’s review of the basis for the FBI’s probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election found several procedural errors, but overall no indication of any “political bias” by the agency.

The former and current heads of the FBI felt a sense of vindication by the report.

“For two years, the President of the United States accused our premier law enforcement agency of treason, of trying to defeat him, of trying to stop him,” stated fired FBI Director James Comey. “And it turns out that was all nonsense that was all lies.”

Current FBI Director Christopher Wray also chimed in, saying “the Inspector General did not find political bias or improper motivations impacting the opening of the investigation or the decision to use certain investigative tools during the investigations.”

However, President Trump took exception to Director Wray’s comments, so much so that the president expressed a lack of confidence in Wray’s ability to correct the many problems and mistakes outlined in the report.

The president responded to Director Wray’s comments by saying he did not know what report the current director of the FBI had read, while maintaining his position that the FBI report was tainted by the political opinions of those involved in the investigation. Trumps exact tweet was, “I don’t know what report current Director of the FBI Christopher Wray was reading, but it sure wasn’t the one given to me. With that kind of attitude, he will never be able to fix the FBI, which is badly broken despite having some of the greatest men & women working there!”

The president’s comments came after both the former and current directors’ own statements, where they acknowledged grave mistakes were made by FBI personnel during the course of the investigation.

“The Inspector General did find a number of instances where employees either failed to follow our policies, neglected to exercise appropriate diligence or in some other way fell short of the standard of conduct and performance that we, and that I as a director, expect of all of our employees,” said Wray.

His comments came after the Inspector General report found 17 instances of significant errors or omissions in the applications for FISA warrants, to which Wray said he and the bureau are actively taking strides to remedy the missteps made by agents during the course of the 2016 investigation.