FBI director Christopher Wray said Wednesday he will resign before Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20, the New York Times reported.
"I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down," Wray told bureau employees. "This is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work."
Wray’s resignation comes after Trump signaled in November he would fire Wray and replace him with former federal prosecutor Kash Patel.
Trump appointed Wray to lead the FBI in 2017 but has since criticized the director for leading several investigations into the former president, including searching his Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022 for classified documents and examining the now-debunked links between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russian intelligence.
"He invaded my home," Trump told NBC News on Sunday. "I’m very unhappy with the things he’s done. ... Crime is at an all-time high. Migrants are pouring into the country that are from prisons. … I can’t say I’m thrilled."
Last month, Wray failed to testify at the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s annual public hearing on threats facing the United States. Sen. Gary Peters (D., Mich.), chairman of the committee, said Wray’s absence was "a serious blow to trust in our government."