Republican Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) called current FBI Director Christopher Wray a “very good man” to lead the Bureau, in the wake of news that President-Elect Donald Trump was orchestrating Wray’s ouster.

Trump appointed Wray to the position in 2017 but has since accused the FBI of becoming “weaponized” against him and his MAGA allies. On Saturday, Trump announced that he was nominating loyalist Kash Patel to replace Wray as FBI director.

Rounds told ABC’s Jonathan Karl, “It doesn’t surprise me that he will pick people that he believes are very loyal to himself.”

Rounds continued:

Chris Wray, you know, who the president nominated the first time around, I think the president picked a very good man to be the director of the FBI when he did that in his first term. When we meet with him behind closed doors, I’ve had no objections to the way that he’s handled himself. And, so, I don’t have any complaints about the way that he’s done his job right now. And, once again, the president has the right to make nominations, but normally these are for a 10-year term.

We’ll see what his process is, and whether he actually makes that nomination. And then, if he does, just as with anybody who is nominated for one of these positions, once they’ve been nominated by the president, then the president gets, you know, the benefit of the doubt on the nomination, but we still go through a process, and that process includes advice and consent, which, for the Senate, means advice or consent sometimes.

Karl then asked if it would be a “mistake” for Trump to fire Wray.

“You know, look…the one thing that we’ve learned is, is we don’t speak for the president-elect. We simply respond when we’re asked questions about what we’re going to do. The message, and one that I feel very strongly about, is, is that there is a constitutional separation. The founding fathers did that for a reason.”

Watch the clip above via ABC News.

The post ‘A Very Good Man’: GOP Senator Defends FBI Director Chris Wray as Trump Prepares to Push Him Out first appeared on Mediaite.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/mzV0iYf