Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a now-deleted post on social media platform X that he and President-elect Donald Trump were interviewing candidates for a new FBI director.
The post, quoted by several media outlets and widely shared across social media in the form of screenshots, appears to primarily react to the Senate’s Nov. 19 vote confirming one of President Joe Biden’s judicial appointments to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“When this 11th Circuit vote happened, I was meeting with President Trump to interview multiple positions for our government, including for FBI Director,” Vance wrote in the Nov.19 post. “I tend to think it’s more important to get an FBI director who will dismantle the deep state than it is for Republicans to lose a vote 49–46 rather than 49–45. But that’s just me.”
Vance was absent from the Senate vote. It’s unclear who was being interviewed for the role.
Several recent reports have claimed that Kash Patel was being considered for the job. A spokesperson for Patel said they had nothing to share on speculation that he may take over the agency.
Christopher Wray is the current FBI director and has been since 2017 after Trump fired James Comey and nominated Wray for the job. Before that, Wray served as a federal prosecutor and a Justice Department official.
FBI directors are normally selected to serve 10 years, meaning Wray would not have to step down until 2027.
Trump has been critical of the agency during the current administration, saying in July 2023 that it was “probably“ a mistake to put Wray in charge of the FBI.
Wray indicated during an April 2024 interview with NBC that he wouldn’t resign if Trump was reelected, saying, “I’m enjoying doing this job ... and as long as I can do that in a way that adheres to [FBI] rules and norms, it’s what I'd like to keep doing.”
Trump was critical of the agency for its role in arresting hundreds who were at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, most of whom were charged with nonviolent offenses related to trespassing. The president-elect has referred to those held in federal custody on related charges as hostages.
His criticism of the agency intensified following the FBI’s Aug. 8, 2022, raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, during which agents searched the rooms of both his son Barron Trump and his wife, Melania Trump.
In a 2022 interview, his son Eric Trump described the search as “a political hit.”
The federal agency also investigated Trump during the 2016 presidential election in an operation dubbed “Crossfire Hurricane,” based on claims that he was colluding with Russia.
A May 2023 report by Special Counsel John Durham later concluded that these investigations were baseless and largely the result of the “confirmation bias” of FBI investigators.
The Epoch Times contacted the Trump transition team for further comment but did not receive a response by publication time. The FBI told The Epoch Times that it had no comment on the matter.
