Sen. Chuck Grassley demanded Monday that FBI director Christopher Wray step aside in a brutal rebuke of his tenure at the bureau, as GOP senators cheered President-elect Donald Trump’s pick of Kash Patel to replace him as director.
“For the good of the country, it’s time for you and your deputy to move on to the next chapter in your lives,” Grassley (R-Iowa) wrote in a blistering 11-page to Wray, referring to the director and deputy director Paul Abbate.
“[I] must express my vote of no confidence in your continued leadership of the FBI.”
Wray, 57, who is seven years into a 10-year term, has been coy about his intentions, but some key GOP lawmakers are hoping he steps aside for Patel.
“Kash Patel will create much-needed transparency at the FBI,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) posted Monday on X in an expression of her full support. “He shares my passion for shaking up federal agencies, downsizing the D.C. bureaucracy, and having public servants work on behalf of the American people!”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) also broadly contended: “I expect our Republican Senate is going to confirm all of President Trump’s nominees.”
To install Patel at the top of the bureau, Trump, 78, will first either have to fire Wray or the FBI boss will have to resign.
“We still don’t know what director Wray’s plans are, but eventually, I assume that Mr. Patel will be confirmed as the next FBI director,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who made a bid in November to lead the Senate Republican conference but lost to Sen. John Thune (R-SD), told reporters after his meeting with Trump’s nominee.
Grassley, 91, recounted Wray’s commitment to him that he’d reform the bureau in the wake of a politicization scandal seven years ago amid its probe into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign during the 2016 election cycle.
Then the Senate president pro tempore emeritus rattled through a list of grievances against the FBI on Wray’s watch — including how the bureau stonewalled records requests from Congress.
“President Trump has been subjected to a continuing double standard,” Grassley went on in the scathing letter.
“While the FBI under your leadership turned a blind eye to information contained in the FD-1023 that was prejudicial to President Biden, FBI agents conducted an unprecedented raid of President Trump’s home in Florida to serve a warrant for records,” he said.
That’s a reference to an informant file the FBI had outlining $10 million bribery accusations against President Biden and his son Hunter, which Grassley made public last year.
Grassley, who is in line to be the next Senate GOP Judiciary Committee Chairman as well, has also previously sung Patel’s praises.
Trump publicly bashed Wray in a Sunday morning interview as he recounted the FBI’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago club for troves of classified materials in August 2022, which led to a federal indictment the following year.
“He invaded my home,” Trump bemoaned to NBC News’ “Meet the Press” on Sunday, before recalling Wray’s reaction to the July 13 assassination attempt against him. “And then when I was shot in the ear, he said, ‘Oh, maybe it was shrapnel.’”
Meanwhile, media critics and Democrats have pummeled Trump’s FBI director pick Patel, raking him over the coals for formulating a list of so-called “Deep State” actors to purge from federal agencies, among other concerns.
But that appears to have done little to scare off members of the Senate GOP conference, where he is largely earning high marks.
During his outreach to Republican senators, Patel has underscored his ambition of boosting transparency at the bureau.
GOP lawmakers, particularly in the House of Representatives, have long railed against the FBI, accusing it of being weaponized politically against conservatives.
Cornyn, who previously served as the Lone Star State’s Attorney General, met with Patel on Monday and came away impressed, though he was tight-lipped about whether he wants Wray gone.
“I’m not gonna get involved in that. That’s up to President Trump and director Wray,” he said when asked if the FBI honcho should step aside or be fired.
Cornyn, 72, added that he was “certainly inclined to support [Patel], barring some unforeseen circumstances.”
During their meeting, Patel and Cornyn discussed concerns about the FBI becoming politicized and the need to restore the “reputation of the FBI as a nonpartisan law enforcement investigative agency,” according to the senator.
Liberal critics have harped on his 2022 book, “Government Gangsters,” in which he outlined a list of 60 so-called “Deep State” actors.
Other Senate GOPers had previously sent strong signals that they intend to back Patel, including Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is up for re-election in 2026.
“My position on supporting Trump nominees is quite clear. And I’m looking forward to leading the charge to get Pam Bondi and Kash Patel confirmed,” he wrote on X last Friday.
More moderate members of the Senate Republican Caucus such as Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have given no indications publicly that they have any serious reservations about Patel.
“I don’t know Kash Patel,” Collins told reporters last week, per Politico. “I had heard his name, but I don’t know his background, and I’m going to have to do a lot of work before reaching a decision on him.”
One GOP insider on the cabinet confirmations process told The Post that senators are generally “feeling good about both” Patel and director of Director of National Intelligence designee Tulsi Gabbard.
