Wray confirmed by Senate to lead FBI after Comey firing

Wray confirmed by Senate to lead FBI after Comey firing

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed former Justice Department lawyer Christopher Wray as FBI chief, nearly three months after the agency’s previous director, James Comey, was fired by President Donald Trump.

Wray, who was confirmed by vote of 92-5, will take charge of the country’s top domestic law enforcement agency during a federal probe into allegations of collusion between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia.

Since the dismissal of Comey on May 9, the Justice Department has appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel to oversee the investigation with the help of the FBI. Russia denies any interference, and Trump has denied collusion with Russia.

Wray vowed in his confirmation hearing last month to remain independent and not be swayed by politics or pressure from the president. He also praised Muller as the “consummate straight shooter.”

He also worked with Comey on the government’s case in the Enron Corp fraud scandal in the early 2000s.

During the confirmation hearing, Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Wray’s background showed he was committed to independence, an attribute he said was “vitally important” in the next FBI director.

Wray served as assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division at the Justice Department under former Republican President George W. Bush.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, both Democrats who served under President Barack Obama, endorsed Wray.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Wall St. rises as Comey testimony springs no surprise

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York, U.S., June 2, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) – U.S. stocks were higher in early afternoon trading on Thursday after former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony was seen by investors as having no smoking gun that could affect Donald Trump’s presidency.

Comey, who was investigating alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, said he had no doubt that Russia interfered with the election, but was confident that no votes had been altered.

Comey said he was disturbed by Trump’s bid to get him to drop a probe into former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, but would not say whether he thought the president sought to obstruct justice.

Investors were concerned that any major revelation by Comey could dampen already flagging momentum for Trump’s agenda of lower taxes and lax regulations.

Bets that Trump can implement his agenda are partly behind a rally that has taken stock indexes to record highs.

“I think the market is taking less of an alarmist review of this situation because there is no smoking gun here. So it’s not particularly impactful for thinking about … Trump’s economic agenda to go through,” said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies & Co in New York.

Earlier on Thursday, the European Central Bank signaled no further interest rate cuts as euro zone prospects improved, but said subdued inflation meant it would continue to pump more stimulus into the region’s economy.

Investors are also awaiting the results of the UK general election. Opinion polls show Theresa May’s Conservative Party leading between 5 and 12 percentage points over the main opposition Labour Party, suggesting she would increase her majority.

“The market cares because if Theresa May loses the majority that would be disruptive of the Brexit process,” said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at Wunderlich Securities in New York.

“Getting back into something that seemed to be a fair and orderly process into something that’s going to be more disruptive would not be a market positive.”

At 12:36 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average <.DJI> was up 68.55 points, or 0.32 percent, at 21,242.24 and the S&P 500 <.SPX> was up 4.06 points, or 0.16 percent, at 2,437.2.

The Nasdaq Composite <.IXIC> was up 14.46 points, or 0.23 percent, at 6,311.84.

Six of the 11 major S&P sectors were lower, with the defensive utilities index’s <.SPLRCU> 1.04 percent loss topping the decliners.

Financials <SPSY> rose 1.59 percent leading the gainers.

Shares of Alibaba Group Holding <BABA.N> were up 11.3 percent at $139.78 after the company said it expected revenue growth of 45-49 percent in the 2018 fiscal year.

Yahoo <YHOO.O>, which owns a 15.5 percent stake in Alibaba, rose 8.3 percent.

Nordstrom <JWN.N> jumped 10.6 percent to $44.78 after the department store operator said that some members of the controlling Nordstrom family have formed a group to consider taking the company private.

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners on the NYSE by 1,624 to 1,188. On the Nasdaq, 1,832 issues rose and 926 fell.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Sinead Carew and Dion Rabouin; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Savio D’Souza)

Comey’s caution to meet Trump’s tweets in Russia hearing

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump (L) speaks in Ypilanti Township, Michigan March 15, 2017 and FBI Director James Comey testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., May 3, 2017 in a combination of file photos. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo

By Warren Strobel and Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former FBI Director James Comey will tell Congress on Thursday that President Donald Trump pressed him repeatedly to halt a probe into his ex-national security adviser’s ties with Russia and to declare publicly that Trump himself was not under investigation.

Comey’s testimony in the most widely anticipated congressional hearing in years will put at center stage a high-stakes clash between two men with vastly different personas.

The outcome could have significant repercussions for Trump’s 139-day-old presidency as special counsel Robert Mueller and multiple congressional committees investigate whether Trump’s campaign team colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential election. The White House and Russia deny any collusion occurred.

In written testimony released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday, Comey quoted Trump as telling him the Russia investigation was a “cloud” impairing his ability to operate as president.

Comey said in his statement that in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office on Feb.14, Trump asked him to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn that is part of a wider probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

“I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Comey quoted Trump as saying.

Comey also said Trump told him during a one-on-one dinner on Jan. 27 that he needed “loyalty.”

Trump fired the FBI chief on May 9, setting off a political firestorm, and he has since called Comey a “showboat” and a “grandstander.”

Democrats, along with some Republicans, on the committee will use the hearing on Thursday to press for further details of any attempts by Trump to blunt the Russia investigation.

“I’m very concerned about the implication that Comey keeping his job was dependent on his loyalty or, in Comey’s words, developing a ‘patronage relationship.’ That is another way the President sought to impede the investigation,” Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said in a comment emailed to Reuters.

Senator Susan Collins, a Republican member of the panel, said earlier this week: “I want to know more also about the president’s interactions with Mr. Comey with regard to the investigation into Michael Flynn. … It makes a big difference what the exact words were, the tone of the president, the context of the conversation.”

But Republican Senator Richard Burr, the panel’s chairman, sought to downplay Comey’s “loyalty” remark, saying: “I don’t think it’s wrong to ask for loyalty from anybody in an administration.”

Trump’s attorney, Marc Kasowitz, released a statement on Wednesday saying the president felt “totally vindicated” by Comey’s acknowledgement that he had told Trump on three occasions that he was not personally under investigation.

Despite landing himself in other political controversies, including his handling of the FBI investigation of 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s private email server, Comey is widely seen as cautious and fact-oriented.

“One thing you don’t ever hear about him is (that) people don’t think he tells the truth. He brings a lot of credibility,” said Benjamin Wittes, a Comey confidant and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Less than five months into office, Trump has proven himself to be impulsive and visceral, turning to Twitter to lambaste perceived adversaries in 140 characters or less.

AWKWARD RELATIONSHIP

As Comey’s written testimony underscored, he and the U.S. president had an awkward, topsy-turvy relationship.

Then-candidate Trump excoriated Comey last summer for deciding not to prosecute Clinton over her handling of government emails, then praised him when he reopened the issue in October just days before the election.

Trump initially kept Comey on as FBI director, and publicly embraced him at a January White House event. Two days after firing him, Trump said it was because of “this Russia thing.”

Trump is widely expected to use his Twitter account, which lists 31.8 million followers, to counterpunch at Comey on Thursday – perhaps even in real time.

The Republican president’s unconstrained use of Twitter has confounded allies and skeptics alike.

“Every time you tweet, it makes it harder on all of us who are trying to help you. I don’t think you did anything wrong. Don’t get in the way of an investigation that could actually clear you,” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News on Wednesday.

Despite the high drama, Comey is not expected to drop any major new bombshells, or directly accuse Trump of trying to obstruct justice by asking him to halt the FBI probe of Flynn.

He is also unlikely to reveal new details of the ongoing Russia investigation. U.S. law enforcement officials said Comey had discussed his testimony with Mueller’s investigative team to ensure it did not interfere with the special counsel’s probe.

“The one thing you know he’s not going to do, you know he’s not going to reach a conclusion (on the legality of Trump’s actions) and he’s not going to talk about the underlying investigation,” said Stephen Ryan, a former federal prosecutor and congressional investigator now at the McDermott, Will & Emery law firm.

Still, Ryan said the testimony, and senators’ questions, would be historic. The closest comparison, he said, was the appearance 44 years ago of President Richard Nixon’s White House counsel John Dean, who, after being fired by Nixon, gave damning testimony in 1973 to the Senate Watergate Committee.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Peter Cooney)

Trump to ask former Justice Dept official Wray to lead FBI

FILE PHOTO: Assistant U.S. Attorney General Christopher Wray pauses during a press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, U.S. November 4, 2003. REUTERS/Molly Riley/File Photo

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he plans to nominate Christopher Wray, a former U.S. assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush now in private practice, to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

“I will be nominating Christopher A. Wray, a man of impeccable credentials, to be the new Director of the FBI. Details to follow,” Trump said in a statement on Twitter.

The U.S. Senate must approve Trump’s choice to replace former FBI Director James Comey, whom the president fired last month amid the agency’s ongoing probe into alleged Russian meddling into the U.S. election.

Trump’s announcement comes the day before Comey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Moscow’s alleged interference and any potential ties to Trump’s campaign or associates.

The president met last week with candidates for the FBI director post, including Wray, according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

Wray currently works for King & Spalding’s Washington and Atlanta offices where he handles various white-collar criminal and regulatory enforcement cases, according to the firm.

He served as assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s criminal division from 2003 to 2005, working on corporate fraud scandals and cases involving U.S. financial markets, according to his biography on the law firm’s website.

Many lawmakers have said Trump should pick a career law enforcement professional.

One former FBI official questioned whether Wray had the management experience to run an agency with more than 35,000 people, given the small size of the division he ran at the Justice Department.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Alden Bentley and Jeffrey Benkoe)

U.S. lawmakers to press intel chiefs on Russia ahead of Comey hearing

FILE PHOTO - FBI Director James Comey waits to testify to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing on "Russia's intelligence activities" on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S. January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Patricia Zengerle and Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top U.S. intelligence officials will face questions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election and fallout from the firing of former FBI director James Comey when they appear at a Senate hearing on Wednesday.

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee’s open hearing will feature officials closely tied to President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing last month of Comey, which sparked accusations that the Republican president had dismissed him to hinder the FBI probe and stifle questions about possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the second-ranking official at the Department of Justice who signed a letter recommending Comey’s dismissal, will testify, a day ahead of Comey’s own hotly anticipated testimony in the investigation of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. election.

Rosenstein’s public testimony will be the first since he appointed – in the face of rising pressure from Congress – former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel investigating possible links between Russia and the election.

Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who took over after Comey was fired, will also be at the hearing.

The probe has hung over Trump’s presidency since he took office in January and threatens to overwhelm his policy priorities.

The Kremlin denies U.S. intelligence agencies’ conclusion that Moscow tried to tilt the election campaign in Trump’s favor, including by hacking into the emails of senior Democrats. Trump has denied any collusion.

“I know that there are going to be members who want to hear from Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein about his involvement in the (Comey) firing,” Senator Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, told Reuters.

National Security Agency Director Admiral Mike Rogers and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats will also be present at the hearing originally set to discuss a foreign surveillance law.

“My hope will be that Admiral Rogers and Director Coats won’t try to hide behind executive privilege … about the press reports about the president asking them to downplay the Russia investigation,” Warner said.

The Washington Post reported on May 22 that Trump had asked the officials to help push back against the FBI investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Moscow, citing current and former officials.

The two refused to comply with the request, which they regarded as inappropriate, the Post report said.

The Washington Post separately reported on Tuesday that Coats told associates in March that Trump asked him if he could intervene with then FBI Director Comey to get the FBI to back off its focus on Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, in its Russia probe, according to officials.

The intelligence officials are also expected to defend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA — the stated topic of the hearing — which will expire on Dec. 31 unless Congress votes to reauthorize it.

Section 702 allows the NSA to collect digital communications of foreigners believed to be living overseas whose communications pass through U.S. telephone or Internet providers. Information about Americans is also sometimes incidentally gathered, such as when someone is communicating to a foreign target which privacy advocates have long argued evades Constitutional protections against warrantless searches.

U.S. surveillance practices have come under increased scrutiny amid unsubstantiated assertions by Trump and other Republicans that the White House under former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, improperly spied on Trump or his associates.

There is no evidence that political motives drove Obama administration officials to request the names of Trump associates in any intercepts. The requests underwent every required evaluation, and they produced nothing out of the ordinary, according to four current and former officials who have reviewed the materials.

(Additional reporting by John Walcott; Editing by Yara Bayoumy and Lisa Shumaker)

Trump will not block ex-FBI chief Comey’s testimony: White House

A combination photo shows U.S. President Donald Trump (L) in the House of Representatives in Washington, U.S., on February 28, 2017 and FBI Director James Comey in Washington U.S

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump will not invoke executive privilege to block former FBI Director James Comey’s scheduled testimony before Congress this week, the White House said on Monday.

“In order to facilitate a swift and thorough examination of the facts sought by the Senate Intelligence Committee, President Trump will not assert executive privilege regarding James Comey’s scheduled testimony,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters.

Comey was leading a Federal Bureau of Investigation probe into alleged Russian meddling in last year’s U.S. presidential election and possible collusion by Trump’s campaign when the president fired him last month.

Presidents can assert executive privilege to prevent government employees from sharing information.

If Trump had asserted executive privilege over Comey, it would have likely created the perception that the administration was seeking to hide information about the FBI’s Russia investigation.

It has been reported that Comey plans to talk about conversations in which Trump pressured him to drop his investigation into former national security advisor Mike Flynn, who was fired for failing to disclose conversations with Russian officials.

Comey is scheduled to testify for the first time since his firing before the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of the committee’s Russia-related investigation.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Julia Edwards Ainsley; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)