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President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance are interviewing candidates for FBI director, Vance said Tuesday in a now-deleted post on social media.
Vance seemingly revealed the team was already conducting interviews in the X post, where he defended himself for missing a vote to confirm Judge Embry Kidd, President Joe Biden’s judicial nominee for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Vance’s comments indicate Trump is likely preparing to fire current FBI Director Christopher Wray before the end of his 10-year term in office. “When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director,” Vance wrote in the now-deleted post, responding to criticism of his absence.
“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. But that’s just me.” Wray was first nominated for the job by Trump himself in 2017 after he fired former FBI Director James Comey. Wray is a registered Republican and previously served as an Assistant Attorney General during George W. Bush’s presidency. He was confirmed with bipartisan support in the Senate by a vote of 92-5 the same year.
However, Trump has soured on Wray in the years since. Trump was reportedly discussing plans to fire Wray if he won a second term in office in 2020. After the election, the FBI led the search for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, further provoking his anger.
Sources told The Wall Street Journal that several names have been floated in the search for a new director, including former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers and Kash Patel, a longtime Trump advisor and former staffer. Representatives for the Trump transition team and Vice President-elect Pence did not immediately return a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
The plan isn’t a surprise for anyone paying attention to Trump’s ever growing enemies list—congressional Republicans took up the charge against the FBI director in Trump’s wake in 2023. Trump loyalist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) introduced articles of impeachment against Wray, accusing him of using the agency as a “Federal police force” to target Biden’s enemies.
Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the chair of the House Oversight Committee, also announced he would move to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress for refusing to provide his committee with a document related to their investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings and connections with his father.
