Christopher Wray is only the eighth director to lead the FBI — and the only one whose appointment was announced on Twitter.
For the past 3 1/2 years, he has been grinding through fierce criticism by former President Donald Trump. He's also guided the bureau through some wounds the FBI inflicted upon itself, including employees' text messages about political candidates in 2016, the guilty plea by an FBI lawyer for altering a document, and a watchdog report that uncovered surveillance applications filled with big mistakes.
Now the laconic Wray, 54, is opening up, ever so slightly, to address what he calls a metastasizing threat of violent domestic extremists and the sprawling investigation of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
He spoke with NPR on Thursday afternoon about the state of the bureau and how the FBI is confronting white supremacist and militia-based terrorism. He also addressed the ongoing investigation into the recent shootings in the Atlanta area.
Interview Highlights
Atlanta-area mass shooting
So obviously, it's a heartbreaking incident, and it hits particularly close to home for me since I consider Atlanta home. And so I certainly grieve for the victims and their families. The FBI is supporting state and local law enforcement, specifically APD, the Atlanta Police Department, and the [Cherokee County] Sheriff's Office. So we're actively involved but in a support role.
And while the motive remains still under investigation at the moment, it does not appear that the motive was racially motivated. But I really would defer to the state and local investigation on that for now.
Threats from domestic terrorists
I elevated racially motivated violent extremism to our top threat priority level about a year and a half ago or so. And I've been trying to call out this threat for a number of years now since I've been in this job.
We have doubled the number of domestic violent extremist investigations we've had since where they were when I started as director, and we were up to about 2,000. And that was before the Jan. 6 siege. So I expect the numbers to be even higher this year. And arrests likewise went up dramatically from 2019 to '20.
And so at the same time, the international terrorism threat — especially international terrorist organizations that inspire homegrown violent extremists here in the U.S. — hasn't gone away by any stretch of the imagination. So we clearly are making do right now with what we have. But we need and will need more resources to tackle that problem.
The sprawling investigation into Jan. 6
You know, I was appalled that something like that could happen in this country and determined to make sure that it doesn't happen ever again. ...
We intend to see this to its conclusion, no matter how many people it takes us to devote to it, no matter how long it takes us to do it, we're going to see it to the end. ... If we have the evidence to charge somebody and they committed a crime on that day, I expect them to be charged. ...
We've arrested people all over the country. I think we have ... open investigations specifically related to the Jan. 6 siege in all but one of our 56 field offices, which gives you a sense of the national sprawl of the investigation. And in some of those instances, there have already been conspiracy charges — small, I would call them — sort of small cells of individuals working together, coordinating their travel, etc. I don't think we've seen some national conspiracy, but we're going to keep digging.
Whether the FBI dropped the ball before Jan. 6
Now, in the case of Jan. 6, specifically, as you said, we had tasked all of our field offices to be on the lookout for information related to any threat to the Capitol and to the National Capital Region on Jan. 6. And to feed that information back. We passed on the information that we did have, as best I can tell, in quite a number of ways. And we had been reporting and warning for a good chunk of 2020, together with the Department of Homeland Security and in a number of instances about the domestic violent extremist threat, about the possibility that the domestic violence extremist threat would carry into the election and beyond the election. ...
Now, what we did not have, as far as I can tell ... is any indication that hundreds and hundreds of people were going to breach the U.S. Capitol. And so we'll be looking hard to figure out, is there more we can be doing? How can we do more, even better?
Whether the law enforcement preparation and response would have been different on Jan. 6 if the rioters were Black or Muslim
Well, look, I'm only going to speak to the FBI's approach, the FBI's position. You know, some of what people talk about has to do with crowd-control tactics ... by law enforcement and defense of buildings and things like that. And that's not the FBI's role or responsibility — whether it's the Capitol, a courthouse, a church, you know, anything else.
Our approach, the FBI's approach — we have one approach, which is if you take the law in your own hands and commit violence, it doesn't matter what your motivation is, what your ideology is, we're going to pursue you to the fullest extent of the law. And that ... was our approach over the summer. That's been our approach with jihadists-inspired violent extremists, and that's been our approach to the siege on the Capitol.
Public confidence in the FBI
So in the last two years, the number of people across this country, qualified people, applying to be special agents, has tripled the years before, and it's the highest it's been in about a decade. So it was around 12,000 a year my first few years as director and went up to [36,000], 37,000. So those are people measuring their confidence level in the FBI by wanting to come work here and put their lives on the line.
But I also look at things internal, like our attrition rate. Our attrition rate is 0.4% now, which tells me something about how people feel about working here. At the end of the day, I think public confidence is measured by, you know two questions: If you were a victim ... who would you most want trying to seek justice on your behalf? And if you were a bad guy, who would you least want on your tail? And I think the FBI is the answer to both questions, 99 out of 100 times all over the country, and that to me is ultimately what really matters in terms of our brand.
Life after Trump
Trump soured on his choice to lead the bureau not too long after Wray took the job in the summer of 2017, and by the end of Trump's presidency, people in and outside the Justice Department wondered whether Wray might be fired. That never happened. NPR asked him how life had changed since he no longer woke up every day wondering if his job were on the line — and whether he hid a letter of resignation in a safe someplace, just in case, during the Trump era.
I guess all I would say is I'm a low-key guy, but nobody should mistake my demeanor for what my spine is made out of. And I made a commitment when I was nominated that I was going to do this job one way — by the book, and that's why I've tried to approach it since Day 1. That's the way I'm going to continue to approach [it].
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