Massive FBI Overhaul Expected as Trump Returns to Power

The FBI is set to undergo a tumultuous transition as President-elect Donald Trump regains the White House, including the departure of director Christopher Wray and exodus of other high-ranking officials, former agents and law enforcement analysts told Newsweek.
Wray, whom Trump tapped in 2017 to head the bureau, is likely to resign rather than await his firing as the incoming commander in chief has publicly demanded as recently as July. Deputy Director Paul Abbate and other top bureau staff also face similar fates, according to former FBI assistant director Tom Fuentes.
“For many of the very senior FBI officials, their preparations should include preparing their resumes,” Fuentes said of the immediate impact of Trump’s win on the 35,000-employee law enforcement agency.
Fuentes, who spent 29 years at the FBI under multiple administrations and retired in 2008, said incoming presidents previously had little impact on the bureau’s longstanding commitment to uphold the constitution and protect American citizens at all costs.
“The last president that I served under was George W. Bush and it wasn’t Bush’s FBI,” Fuentes told Newsweek. “And that’s how we felt — it was the American people’s FBI, and the loyalty was to the constitution.”
That pervasive belief within the 35,000-employee federal agency later changed significantly during the Obama and Biden administrations, Fuentes said, and further deteriorated amid Wray’s leadership and the confirmation of Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2021.
“Those presidents wanted it to be their FBI and under their thumb,” Fuentes said. “And now we’ve seen in the last four years under Biden and Merrick Garland and Christopher Wray, I think the reputation of the FBI has gone tremendously downhill because it’s become clear to just about everybody, including me and my former colleagues, that the FBI became very biased going after conservatives, pro-lifers, allies of Trump, all of that.”
Fuentes said he expects Trump to exert significant pressure on Wray to step down, as he demanded in July after the FBI director told Congress it wasn’t clear whether the Republican nominee had been wounded by a bullet during an attempted assassination earlier that month in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“It’s pretty clear that Christopher Wray needs to be replaced by a director that’ll be unbiased and will serve the constitution, not Merrick Garland or an attorney general like Merrick Garland,” Fuentes said.
Wray, 67, will likely resign to “save face” before Trump’s inauguration rather than being humiliated by being fired like his predecessor, Jim Comey, Fuentes said.
“I think Wray will be gone,” Fuentes said. “Whether he’s wise enough to pull himself out or not, I don’t know.”
Trump, 78, has nominated several key figures in his forthcoming administration, including Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general and former director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, to lead the CIA.
Gaetz has repeatedly accused President Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department to target political opponents like Trump and suggested last year that some federal agencies, including the FBI, should be defunded or abolished altogether.
“What happened at the bureau starting with Comey and accelerating under Christopher Wray is a tragedy to what had been the No. 1 law enforcement agency in the world,” Fuentes said.
“And know you see the public approval of the bureau go from 70 or 80 percent to members of Congress and many members of the public saying the FBI should be disbanded or defunded. They’re asking for more than just cleaning house at the executive level.”
The FBI did not respond to inquiries by Newsweek regarding Wray. Trump’s transition team also declined to indicate if widespread changes are expected at the agency he leads.
Wray, meanwhile, is privately preparing for a possible forced exit, despite having intended to finish his 10-year term, sources close to the matter told NBC News. He could be replaced by Trump adviser Kash Patel, 44, who had been considered as the next CIA director prior to the nomination of Ratcliffe, NBC News reported.
For now, Wray wants as little disruption to the bureau as possible amid the Biden-Trump transition while booking his own schedule into next year — revealing no signs that he plans to step down, sources told the Washington Post.
But Trump seems determined to replace Wray, who appears unlikely to “throw in the towel preemptively” and resign, according to Patrick Eddington, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank.
Eddington predicts Wray, along with Abbate and other top FBI brass, will be promptly “cleansed” or “ejected essentially” once Trump takes office.
“For me the only question is, how much deeper will it go?” Eddington said. “Will they actually try to go after [lower-level] civil servants. Here’s where we’re talking about people who would actually be running FBI field offices. I want to see whether or not they actually reach down that far. I believe they will.”
With a new director ultimately installed, the FBI’s looming overhaul could include identifying pro-Trump employees who recently retired to potentially bring them back on board to “help carry out his agenda,” Eddington said.
Trump could also draw upon tens of thousands of state and local law enforcement officers who have served as deputized agents at federal agencies like the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration or elsewhere, Eddington noted.
“There’s an enormous pool of manpower out there at the state and local level that has direct federal experience, and it some cases many years,” he said. “So that’s another pool of individuals at his disposal that he could potentially bring in and this is where the purge at the field office level kind of comes into play.”
The expected FBI shakeup will likely serve as “vindication of purging the so-called Deep State” for Trump supporters, but could further erode public trust in the bureau for other Americans, Eddington said.
Fifty-one percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the FBI, compared to 33 percent who do not, according to a Pew Research Center poll released in August. The survey also revealed a wide partisan divide — with 66 percent of Democrats expressing a favorable view, more than doubling Republicans (37 percent).
Eddington said former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican who previously chaired the House Intelligence Committee and worked at the FBI as a special agent, would be a shrewd selection to ultimately replace Wray, referring to the likelihood of his confirmation and adherence to Trump’s agenda.
“If Trump was smart and he wanted to put somebody who would be both loyal and absolutely capable, Rogers would be the guy,” Eddington said.
Stuart Kaplan, a former FBI special agent who left the bureau in 2006, said he lost confidence in Wray’s ability to lead when he questioned while testifying before Congress whether Trump had been shot on July 13 or struck instead by shrapnel, prompting agency officials to release a statement days later confirming a bullet or fragment bullet did strike the Republican candidate.
“That was the first time for me that I lost confidence in him,” Kaplan told Newsweek. “And then I really started to question his integrity.”
Kaplan said he foresees Trump allowing Wray the courtesy to resign prior to inauguration and appoint his own replacement, but the FBI director will balk and defer to the president’s final decision.
“Knowing Chris and his personality, I think he’s respectful and puts the mission of the FBI first and foremost above himself and that’s what he will do,” Kaplan said. “He will reach out to Trump and say, ‘Sir, what do you what me to do?'”
Former FBI deputy director John Pistole said internal safeguards are in place if Trump attempts to use the bureau or the Justice Department to target his political enemies. Wray could also maintain his role, Pistole said.
“Chris Wray is a good friend, we worked together back after 9/11 when he was in the Deputy Attorney General’s office,” Pistole told Newsweek. “And I know he’s focused on following the rule of law and having the FBI continue to be as independent an agency from the White House as possible.”
Pistole declined to speculate on Wray’s future aside from suggesting that he could withstand Trump’s expected wrath if the incoming president believes the FBI director might provide stability at the beleaguered bureau.
“There’s so many things that could change between now and then that [Trump] believes keeping director Wray in office is the best thing for national security,” Pistole said, referring to a possible terror attack or another major event.
“Then again, it may be the opposite of that.”