On the fourth day of James Comey’s promotional blitz for a blockbuster book, Christopher Wray was quietly engaged in another kind of advocacy.
Last week at a ceremony honoring community leaders, the new FBI director started by lauding the agency he leads.
“I believe in the work of this organization,” he said before a packed audience at the bureau’s Bonaparte Auditorium. “I believe in the men and women who do this work every single day. … The more I learn, the more inspired I am by the FBI’s … dedication to doing the right thing in the right way.”
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His remarks were a sharp counterpoint to broadsides leveled by the White House and some Republican lawmakers. Nine months after succeeding Comey — dismissed by President Trump for his handling of the Russia investigation — Wray highlighted the enormous challenge before him: managing the federal government’s elite law enforcement agency while restoring an institutional brand wounded in an unyielding political firestorm.
“People talk about criticism, and that inevitably raises questions about things like brand,” Wray said in an interview with USA TODAY. “What I try to tell our folks is that while there are a lot of opinions out there about us, the opinions that really matter are the opinions of a jury when one of our agents takes the stand or a judge when he’s being presented with a warrant or community leaders who are having to work side-by-side with our people.”
Out there, beyond the capital’s echo-chamber, Wray asserts that the bureau’s reputation is unbroken.
“Our brand — with those people — couldn’t be higher,” the director said. “The appreciation we get… I’ve been almost taken aback, but in a good way.”
For an institution regularly featured in Trump’s often unflattering Twitter feed, Wray’s surprise is understandable.
Trump has repeatedly directed his ire at the FBI and Justice Department, charging that the ongoing inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election was biased against him after it was disclosed that two agents formerly assigned to the investigation had exchanged disparaging text messages about Trump.
He has variously described the FBI’s reputation as in “tatters” and the bureau’s conduct “really, really disgraceful” in connection with the Russia inquiry, which includes an examination into whether Trump sought to obstruct the investigation by firing Comey last year.
Each time, Wray has risen to defend the bureau, while careful not to call out the president or other critics by name.
In February, the director sought to rally the ranks after a Republican-led House committee alleged surveillance abuses by the FBI for monitoring former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
“Talk is cheap; the work you do is what will endure,” Wray wrote in an internal message then. “Remember: keep calm and tackle hard.”
Thomas O’Connor, president of the FBI Agents Association, said Wray’s support of the ranks has been constant and “invaluable.”
O’Connor acknowledges that he barely recognized the name of the former Justice Department official when Wray was first nominated in the particularly fraught period shortly after Comey’s firing.
After their first meeting, O’Connor — whose group endorsed former FBI agent and Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers to succeed Comey — said he walked away impressed: “This guy was for real, not a politician.”
O’Connor said the director has demonstrated an urgency to connect with the ranks scattered across the nation’s 56 field divisions.
In the past nine months, Wray has visited 23 field offices, adding that he is “hell bent on trying to get to all 56 … by the end of the year.”
“From everything we’ve seen, he truly believes in the mission,” O’Connor said.
Bill Mateja, a former Justice Department senior counsel who worked with Wray, said that while his friend “surely didn’t anticipate” the forces aligned against him, he believes the new director is best equipped to navigate the storm.
“He calls balls and strikes like he sees them,” Mateja said. “And he’s not going to let any one defame the FBI.”
Wray’s early defense of the bureau, Mateja said, sends a strong message to the ranks: “When you need him most, he’s got your back. The FBI needs that more than ever now.”
In the short term, the director’s work is only expected to become even more challenging as the Justice Department’s inspector general is poised to release its examination of the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server while secretary of State. The review is expected to be harshly critical of the bureau.
(Last month, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, a prominent figure in the Clinton probe, was fired for misleading investigators about his role in providing information to the media before the 2016 election. The case has been referred to federal prosecutors for review.)
For now, though, Wray is focused on preserving the public trust in an institution that has become a favorite target in a hyper-political environment.
On Friday, he was tending to that mission in an auditorium full of community leaders being honored for their public service — a constituency likely more valuable than Washington’s warring political class.
The group included Dr. Meenakshi Brewster, an advocate for opioid treatment in Baltimore; Rabbi Vered Harris, who has pushed for increased security for houses of worship in Oklahoma City; Lisa Allen, a West Virginia executive whose popsicle company has committed to hiring employees with criminal records; and Cynthia Horton, who works with human trafficking victims in El Paso.
They variously described the political warfare in Washington as a kind of white noise that distracts from their partnerships with the FBI on projects across the country.
From her post in far west Texas, Horton has heard the criticisms, but her regard for the FBI is based on the work of local agents who have repeatedly assisted her in the rescue of trafficking victims.
“Any time there is negative publicity, you are going to take a hit,” Horton said. “What I’ve seen is that they (agents) continue to hold their heads up. And we are going to continue to trust until we don’t have a reason to trust anymore.”
