FBI chief moves to fill key posts

FBI Director Christopher Wray has moved to fill two key positions in the agency amid pressure to do away with top officials who served under his predecessor, James Comey.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that Wray has tapped Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division, to serve as the FBI’s general counsel.

In that position, Boente will replace James Baker, who was reassigned in December. 

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Boente has served in acting roles throughout the Justice Department since Trump took office. When former acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired last year, Boente temporarily filled that position. After Attorney General Jeff Sessions was confirmed by the Senate in February, Boente temporarily became the acting deputy attorney general.

He currently serves as the acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division. 

Wray has named as chief of staff Zachary Harmon, a lawyer at the law firm King & Spalding where Wray worked prior to becoming FBI director, the Post reported. 

Harmon is a former federal prosecutor, who currently heads King & Spalding’s anticorruption practice. He will replace Jim Rybicki, who reportedly told Wray last month that he will leave the FBI for a job in the private sector.

“Jim Rybicki notified me last month that he will be leaving the FBI to accept an opportunity in the corporate sector,” Wray said in a statement, according to the Post.

“Jim will be dearly missed by the FBI family — and by me personally. His many years of dedication to the Bureau and (Justice Department), his level-headed judgment and earnest professionalism, and his steady good cheer have been an asset to us all and have contributed greatly to the safety and security of our nation,” he said.

The news that Wray is filling two top positions previously held by officials who had served under Comey came amid reports that Sessions has pressured the FBI director to make personnel changes at the bureau.

In particular, the attorney general reportedly urged Wray to oust FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. According to an Axios report Monday, Wray resisted that pressure, however, and threatened to resign if McCabe was removed.