‘I think a lot of his service was very inappropriate. But we haven’t gone beyond that,’ the president told NBC News.
When asked whether the Justice Department should investigate former FBI Director Christopher Wray, President Donald Trump told an NBC interviewer on Sept. 28, “I would imagine, I would certainly imagine that they are doing that.”
The phone interview by NBC News occurred just days after an indictment was returned against former FBI Director James Comey.
Referring to Wray, Trump said: “I think it’s very inappropriate what he, what he did. And I think a lot of his service was very inappropriate. But we haven’t gone beyond that.”
The president then said, “Don’t forget, we just found out about all of these FBI agents being there,” apparently referring to a statement he issued on Truth Social over the weekend saying 274 FBI agents were in the crowd on Jan. 6, 2021, before and during the breach at the U.S. Capitol.
A report released this past week shows that the FBI sent hundreds of agents to the U.S. Capitol grounds and inside the Capitol.
“The only reason you have answers is because we are finding and producing materials exposing corruption at record levels,” FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on X in response to a post linking to an article from journalist John Solomon on Sept. 26.
The comments from Trump to NBC appear to build upon a statement he made on Truth Social about the FBI on Jan. 6 and about Wray, who resigned before Trump took office in January.
In his post, Trump said that the FBI agents were “probably acting as agitators and insurrectionists” during the Capitol breach and not as “law enforcement officials” and that Wray has “some major explaining to do.”
“That’s two in a row, Comey and Wray, who got caught lying, with our Great Country at stake,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We can never let this happen to America again!”
In 2023, Wray testified before a congressional committee.
“If you are asking if the violence at the Capitol was part of some operation orchestrated by FBI sources or agents, the answer is no,” he said.
Wray also addressed his relationship with Trump in a “60 Minutes” interview in January, saying that “our job as investigators at the FBI is to … follow the facts wherever they lead, no matter who likes it.”
