Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said during his 2024 presidential announcement that he would remove FBI Director Chris Wray if he were elected president.
During his presidential announcement on Twitter Spaces, DeSantis was asked how he’d address growing concerns over misconduct and misuse of resources at the FBI, which is a primary subject of the House Republicans’ ongoing investigation into the weaponization of the federal government.
Asked if he would keep Wray, who began his tenure as FBI chief under President Donald Trump, DeSantis said he would not.
“No, I would not keep Chris Wray as director of the FBI,” he replied quickly. “There’ll be a new one on day one.”
“The DOJ [Department of Justice] and FBI have lost their way,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis discussed the need for a strong attorney general, the official in charge of most domestic federal law enforcement activities.
“In terms of an attorney general, you need someone that’s got a really strong backbone,” he said. “You need somebody that knows you’re going in there and you’re taking care of business. The Washington Post is not gonna like you. New York Times is not gonna like you. You’re gonna get attacked by CNN, and you got to wear that as a badge of honor. You can’t try to please polite society, because otherwise you’ll just get captured by the institution itself.”
DeSantis agreed with other Republicans that the agency had been “weaponized against Americans who think like me and you. And I think they’ve become very partisan.”
DeSantis’ comments come after the most recent FBI whistleblower report claimed that the agency had become “enveloped in politicization,” with charges that it had engaged in “serious abuses” of power.
By Joseph Lord
