FBI chief Wray urges employees to keep ‘following the facts wherever they lead’ in resignation speech – live | Trump administration

The FBI director, Christopher Wray, will resign once Donald Trump takes office.

Trump appointed Wray to a 10-year term leading the federal law enforcement agency in 2017, but has since criticized him for the FBI’s search of his Mar-a-Lago resort for classified documents and other actions the president-elect says are proof the bureau has been “weaponized” against him. After winning the presidential election, Trump nominated former national security official Kash Patel to serve as FBI director, who has so far received a positive reception from Senate Republicans.

Here’s a recap of today’s developments:

• Progressive thinktank Public Citizen called on Wray to rethink his decision to resign as FBI director. “If Donald Trump fires him, so be it. But Wray should not aid and abet the effort to weaponize the FBI by bowing out in advance,” the group’s co-president Robert Weissman, said in a statement.

• Meanwhile, Patel was on Capitol Hill making a case for his candidacy, but his ex-boss, Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton, says he’s unqualified to lead the bureau because he inflated his résumé and was known for exaggerations and fibs.

• Independent senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who became notorious for opposing major parts of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda during the first half of his term, have prevented Democrats from appointing a majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

• Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman who introduced a bill to bar the first-ever openly transgender House lawmaker from using the bathroom that corresponds with her gender identity, said she was attacked. Capitol police confirmed the arrest of an Illinois man on a charge of assaulting a public official.

• Conservative activists have launched a pressure campaign, which includes threats to launch primaries, against lawmakers who are less than enthusiastic in their support Trump’s cabinet picks.

• John Fetterman has become the first Democratic senator to join Trump’s X-like Truth Social. In his first post, he called both the president-elect’s hush-money case and the prosecution of Hunter Biden “bullshit”.

• The House of Representatives passed a $895bn defense policy bill on Wednesday, despite the inclusion of a policy – pushed by Republican speaker Mike Johnson – that prohibits gender-affirming care for the transgender children of service members.

Veteran prosecutors warn that if the Senate confirms Bondi and Patel, they could create a climate for violence against Trump’s foes.

“I’m more worried about threats, harassment and political violence than I am in the success of baseless investigations,” said Barbara McQuade, a former top prosecutor in eastern Michigan. “Bondi and Patel will be unable to get bogus charges past a grand jury, a judge or a trial jury, but someone who believes this deep state nonsense could decide to take matters into their own hands.”

Looking ahead, Bromwich stressed too that if Patel and Bondi pursued baseless inquiries, they could boomerang.

“Lawyers and investigators who willingly participate in the pursuit of a revenge and retribution agenda risk losing not only the respect of their peers but their future livelihoods. In particular, lawyers who initiate investigations and pursue prosecutions without factual predicates risk being the subject of ethics complaints and the loss of their law licenses.”

Kash Patel and Pam Bondi, who Trump has nominated to run the FBI and Department of Justice, respectively, have been unswerving loyalists to Trump for years, promoting Trump’s false claims that his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden was due to fraud.

Ex-justice department prosecutors worry that Trump’s two picks will exact retribution against Trump foes, undermining the independence of both the justice department and the FBI and damaging the rule of law.

“The rhetoric of Bondi and Patel is incredibly harmful to public trust in our government institutions and the reputations of individual public servants,” said Barbara McQuade, a former top prosecutor in eastern Michigan who now teaches law at the University of Michigan. “There’s absolutely no public evidence of wrongdoing to ‘rig’ the 2020 election.

“Pledges to prosecute the prosecutors and investigate the investigators based on the complete absence of evidence is reckless because even if investigations do not materialize, unhinged members of the public will hear these bombastic accusations as a call to action.”

Similarly, the former justice department inspector general Michael Bromwich said: “Bondi and Patel are election deniers, in the face of the adjudication of more than 60 cases rejecting claims of election fraud in 2020. This is alarming.

“Members of the Senate judiciary committee have a duty to explore the basis of those often-repeated beliefs. If Bondi and Patel maintain that the election was stolen, they either are liars – and lying under oath is a crime – or they are so detached from reality that they shouldn’t be trusted to run a two-person convenience store, much less the DoJ and the FBI.”

The former federal prosecutor and Columbia law professor Daniel Richman likens Trump’s nominees to his heavy reliance in his real estate career on Roy Cohn, the late mafia lawyer and chief counsel to rightwing senator Joseph McCarthy.

“Still casting about for a Roy Cohn replacement, Trump has gone to people like Bondi and Patel whose loyalty comes from their utter dependence on his favor,” Richman said.

Read the full story here:

In his parting message, Christopher Wray told employees at the FBI that if they stick to the core values of the agency, that the agency would “just fine”:

If we stick together and stick to our core values – as individuals committed to doing the right thing, the right way – then as a team we’ll be doing that at scale.

And ultimately, we’ll be just fine.

Our great strength is each other – that we’re all committed to the same mission, and to accomplishing it the same way – the right way, every time. That’s what the rule of law is all about.

Unfortunately, all too often in today’s world, people’s standard for whether something was fair or objective – a Supreme Court decision, a verdict in a high-profile case, the investigation we brought, or the one we didn’t bring – is whether they liked the result, whether their side won or lost.

But that’s not how independence and objectivity work. We’re not on any one side. We’re on the American people’s side – the Constitution’s side. And no matter what’s happening out there, in here we’ve got to stay committed to doing our work the right way every time – with rigor and integrity.

That means following the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it, or doesn’t – because there’s always someone who doesn’t like it. It means conducting investigations without fear or favor. And it means not pursuing investigations when the predication is not there.

Now let me be clear: We’re accountable to the American people, and we welcome the tough questions. But in terms of how we do the work, we’ve got to maintain our independence and objectivity – staying above partisanship and politics.

Montana supreme court blocks ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors

Ed Pilkington

Montana’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors has been temporarily blocked by the state supreme court on grounds that it is likely to violate the right to privacy enshrined in the state’s constitution.

The top court in Montana sided on Wednesday with an earlier district court decision blocking SB 99, the ban introduced last year by the Republican-controlled state legislature. The decision will allow under-18 transgender girls and boys to continue gender-affirming medical treatment pending a full trial.

Montana’s supreme court justices agreed with the district court judge Jason Marks who put a stop to the ban in September 2023, just days before it came into effect. Marks ruled: “The legislature has no interest … to justify its interference with an individual’s fundamental privacy right to obtain a particular lawful medical procedure from a healthcare provider.”

The decision to allow gender-affirming treatment to continue for the time being was greeted with delight by the young plaintiffs and advocacy groups. Zooey Zephyr, a Democrat who is the first out trans member of the state legislature, said on social media: “Montana has a constitutional right to privacy, including in our healthcare decisions. Today our constitution continues to protect individuals from government overreach.”

Zephyr was propelled into the national limelight in the spring of 2023 when she spoke passionately against the ban in the Montana house. She was banished from the chamber by the Republican leadership prompting large protests.

Montana is among at least 26 states that have introduced bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors. By contrast, 15 states have enacted protections for under-18s seeking treatment.

The state’s supreme court ruling comes at a critical moment in the nationwide battle over medical care for trans youth. Earlier this month the US supreme court heard oral arguments in a landmark case brought by the ACLU and others against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for trans minors.

Read the full story here:

Attorney general Merrick Garland praised Wray for his service.

“The director of the FBI is responsible for protecting the independence of the FBI. from inappropriate influence in its criminal investigations. That independence is central to preserving the rule of law and to protecting the freedoms we as Americans hold dear,” Garland said in a statement.

Independent senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who became notorious for opposing major parts of Joe Biden’s legislative agenda during the first half of his term, have prevented Democrats from appointing a majority on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

Manchin and Sinema, both former Democrats who left the party this year and in 2022, respectively, voted against reappointing Lauren McFerran to a five-year term on the NLRB, which enforces labor laws and oversees unionization efforts. Together with opposition from Senate Republicans, McFerran’s nomination failed, preventing the Democrats from having a majority of their appointees on the board through 2026. Instead, her seat will become open next week, and is likely to be filled by an appointee picked by Donald Trump and confirmed by the Senate’s incoming Republican majority.

Manchin and Sinema’s votes were a parting shot to Democrats, after both opted to retire rather than seek another term in the Senate. Biden’s allies are rushing to approve as many federal judges and other appointees as possible before the GOP takes the majority in January, with an eye towards frustrating Trump’s ability to enact the sorts of radical policies he campaigned on implementing.

In his post cheering Christopher Wray’s plan to depart as FBI director, Donald Trump also sang the praises of Kash Patel, his nominee to lead the bureau:

Kash Patel is the most qualified Nominee to lead the FBI in the Agency’s History, and is committed to helping ensure that Law, Order, and Justice will be brought back to our Country again, and soon. As everyone knows, I have great respect for the rank-and-file of the FBI, and they have great respect for me. They want to see these changes every bit as much as I do but, more importantly, the American People are demanding a strong, but fair, System of Justice. We want our FBI back, and that will now happen. I look forward to Kash Patel’s confirmation, so that the process of Making the FBI Great Again can begin.

Patel has promised to make radical changes to the bureau, including dramatically downsizing its Washington headquarters, and opening investigations of journalists and others who have been critical of Trump. Republican senators have thus far signaled support for his nomination.

Here’s more about Patel’s ideas, and the concerns that have been raised about them:

Christopher Wray’s plans to step down as FBI director once he takes office will “end the weaponization” of federal law enforcement, Donald Trump said.

Referring to the justice department as “the United States Department of Injustice”, Trump said of Wray, the outgoing FBI director whom he appointed in 2017: “I just don’t know what happened to him.” The president-elect has repeatedly claimed the bureau has become politicized, after FBI agents searched his Mar-a-Lago resort and found classified documents. He’s also criticized the justice department under Joe Biden, whose attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to lead Trump’s prosecution on charges of hiding classified documents, and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.

Here’s more from Trump:

The resignation of Christopher Wray is a great day for America as it will end the Weaponization of what has become known as the United States Department of Injustice. I just don’t know what happened to him. We will now restore the Rule of Law for all Americans. Under the leadership of Christopher Wray, the FBI illegally raided my home, without cause, worked diligently on illegally impeaching and indicting me, and has done everything else to interfere with the success and future of America. They have used their vast powers to threaten and destroy many innocent Americans, some of which will never be able to recover from what has been done to them.