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Speaker 1: President Trump has nominated Christopher Ray to replace James Comey

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Speaker 1: as the new head of the FBI. Raise a high

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Speaker 1: powered defense attorney who was a top Justice Department official

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Speaker 1: under President George W. Bush and a federal prosecutor in Georgia,

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Speaker 1: but his qualifications were not the subject of most of

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Speaker 1: the questions and his Senate confirmation hearing yesterday, where the

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Speaker 1: shadow of Trump Comy, and even Donald Trump Jr. Hung

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Speaker 1: over the senator's questions. Time and again, both Republicans and

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Speaker 1: Democrats wanted to be assured that Ray would be independent

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Speaker 1: of political or outside influence in leading the bureau. I

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Speaker 1: will never allow the FBI's work to be driven by

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Speaker 1: anything other than the facts, the law, and the impartial

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Speaker 1: pursuit of justice, period full stop. No one asked me

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Speaker 1: for any kind of loyalty oath. I did not consider

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Speaker 1: Director Muller to be on a witch hunt. My guest

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Speaker 1: is a partner at Gibson Done, Benjamin Wagner. He's also

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Speaker 1: a former U S attorney from Georgia, and I want

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Speaker 1: to mention that Benjamin signed onto a byparison letter of

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Speaker 1: support for Ray from one U S attorneys. Well, Benjamin,

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Speaker 1: did Ray pass the loyalty test to the rule of

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Speaker 1: law that the senators seemed to be giving him. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think so, um honously, he needed to convey that

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Speaker 1: he understood this was a very unusual situation that he

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Speaker 1: was in. The circumstances surrounding the departure of the prior director,

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Speaker 1: the ongoing Special Council investigation, uh puts Mr Ray in

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Speaker 1: a very, uh sort of unusual situation going in as

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Speaker 1: FBI director. And I think he needed to convey that

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Speaker 1: he understood that that he was going to be independent

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Speaker 1: by the book. Uh. And I think he did a

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Speaker 1: good job of responding to questions from both sides of

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Speaker 1: the aisle in reassuring senators that that he understood the

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Speaker 1: situation and and he could be relied upon to be

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Speaker 1: nonpartisan and independent. You signed on to this biparison letter

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Speaker 1: of support from one U S attorneys. Do you know

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Speaker 1: Ray personally? I know him personally. I wouldn't say that

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Speaker 1: I know him well. Um uh. We overlapped at the

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Speaker 1: Justice Department. That was before I was the U. S. Attorney.

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Speaker 1: Um and I was in the Eastern District of California

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Speaker 1: by the way. Um. But uh, so I I know

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Speaker 1: him personally, but I know him more by reputation. We

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Speaker 1: have mutual acquaintances. Of course, he was a UM. I

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Speaker 1: was in the Department of Justice for twenty four years,

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Speaker 1: and so, uh, you know, you hear a lot within

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Speaker 1: the department about individuals and the course of that. Ray

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Speaker 1: was asked so many questions as hypotheticals that were really

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Speaker 1: based on things that James Coby did or said, for example,

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Speaker 1: his press conference on Hillary Clinton's email investigation and his

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Speaker 1: testimony that Trump asked him to drop the investigation into

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Speaker 1: former National Security advisor Michael Flynn. Always your reaction to

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Speaker 1: the senators taking the facts and putting them into hypotheticals

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Speaker 1: for him, Well, you know, it's not surprising. There's always

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Speaker 1: a little bit of this kind of game that goes

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Speaker 1: back and forth UM at uh confirmation hearings for these

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Speaker 1: kinds of positions. You saw it in the Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: confirmation hearing recently, where that nominees understandably don't want to

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Speaker 1: be sort of on the record talking about facts that

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Speaker 1: are either outside their uh their personal knowledge or talking

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Speaker 1: about things that may come before them. Uh, and they

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Speaker 1: may have to, you know, be be held to opinions

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Speaker 1: that were expressed earlier when they didn't know all the facts,

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Speaker 1: and so they're very careful about that. And for that reason, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the senators have have been through this rigmarole before,

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Speaker 1: and so I think they approach it in the sort

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Speaker 1: of hypothetical, uh, in order to get the person talking,

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Speaker 1: so they can get a sense of the person without

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Speaker 1: uh forcing a question that they know that the nominee

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Speaker 1: will not answer. Something I found unusual, Benjamin, is that

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Speaker 1: Christopher Ray is friends or is acquaintances with both Jim Comey,

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Speaker 1: the former head of the FBI, and the former head

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Speaker 1: of the FBI who is now the Special prosecutor, Robert Mueller.

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Speaker 1: And according to a book called The may about the

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Speaker 1: matrix called the Threat Matrix, he said, when there are

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Speaker 1: rumors that Comey was going to be resigning, he stopped

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Speaker 1: him in the hallway, according to the book, and said, look,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what's going on, but before you guys

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Speaker 1: all pull the records, please give me a heads up

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Speaker 1: so I can jump with you. Do you find it

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Speaker 1: in the in the context unusual that Trump would pick

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Speaker 1: this man to be FBI director, who has connections to

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Speaker 1: the two people one he fired and one he has

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Speaker 1: talked about firing. Well, it's certainly not proprising that Chris

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Speaker 1: Ray is well acquainted with Mr Comey and Mr Muller.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they were all serving in the Department of

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Speaker 1: Justice together during the Bush years. They were high level

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Speaker 1: officials that they dealt with a lot of a lot

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Speaker 1: of important issues on a daily basis. UM. And in

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Speaker 1: terms of the uh, the scenario that you were describing,

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Speaker 1: I haven't read the book, but but Chris Ray addressed

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Speaker 1: that in his testimony yesterday. That scenario which I think

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Speaker 1: what you're referring to, is the controversy over the surveillance

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Speaker 1: program in two thousand and fourteen, uh, which Mr Callmey

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Speaker 1: has has previously testified about, and how he and Bob

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Speaker 1: Mueller had indicated that they were going to resign if

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Speaker 1: if the surveillance program were continued because they viewed it

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Speaker 1: as not being uh constitutional. And Chris Ray, in his

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Speaker 1: testimony yesterday, associated himself with that effort, even though he

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Speaker 1: was not really on the intelligent side of the department

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Speaker 1: at that point, he was, he was ready who attender

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Speaker 1: his resignation as well as part of that um so

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Speaker 1: uh And to your question, UH, you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: know um what the President, um, what his view of

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Speaker 1: all of this was when he suggested Chris Ray. But

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Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that Chris Ray made

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Speaker 1: very clear yesterday is that he was not anybody else's person,

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Speaker 1: whether it's the President or Jim Comey or anyone else

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Speaker 1: that he um. He obviously knows Jim Comey talked about

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Speaker 1: that yesterday, um uh and and as fond of him, um.

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Speaker 1: But he also made an effort to distinguish himself and

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Speaker 1: how he would proceed from the way Mr Comey proceeded

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Speaker 1: when he announced his findings concerning the Hillary Clinton email issue.

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Speaker 1: So um, so Chris Ray I think was at pains

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Speaker 1: to point out that he was going to be independent.

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Speaker 1: And I think that is uh probably why the President

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Speaker 1: nominated him, because he knew that issue was going to

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Speaker 1: be scrutinized and Chris Ray was well positioned to sort

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Speaker 1: of pass that test. And as far as all the

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Speaker 1: questions he was asked about the Russia investigation, and Mueller,

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Speaker 1: tell me how you think his responses played into the

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Speaker 1: senator's fears or reassured the senators. Well, uh, I think

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Speaker 1: he did a pretty good job of reassuring them. It's

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Speaker 1: hard to say that. It's a very um sort of

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Speaker 1: fraught political environment right now in Washington in which this

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Speaker 1: Special Council investigation is playing out so um, so it

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Speaker 1: can be difficult to predict how people are going to

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Speaker 1: react to this. But I think generally, UM, from what

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Speaker 1: I could see, Chris Ray did a very good job.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he clearly understood the significance of the Special

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Speaker 1: Council and the significance uh of the independence that that

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Speaker 1: I think uh, members of both parties want Bob Mueller's

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Speaker 1: investigation to proceed unobstructed and to go where the evidence

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Speaker 1: leaves it. And uh, Chris Ray, I think was very

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Speaker 1: reassuring on that point that he was going to support

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Speaker 1: Bob Mueller whatever resources he need. He was he was

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Speaker 1: going to provide that he was not going to interfere

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Speaker 1: and as he said in his written statement, he was

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Speaker 1: not going to allow the FBI's work to be driven

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Speaker 1: by anything other than the facts, the law, and the

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Speaker 1: impartial pursuit of justice. And I think that's probably what

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Speaker 1: senators wanted to hear in both parties. In about a minute,

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Speaker 1: he is if he becomes the FBI director, he'll be

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Speaker 1: inheriting the nation's top law enforcement agency at a particularly

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Speaker 1: challenging time. What do you think the biggest challenges will

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Speaker 1: be for him? Well, I think probably he's very well

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Speaker 1: equipped in a lot of ways for this job given

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Speaker 1: his background, so so he steps in very well equipped.

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Speaker 1: But one of the things that he pointed up yesterday

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Speaker 1: was the cyber threats. Um. He spoke I think very

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Speaker 1: accurately about the the the scope of the of the

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Speaker 1: cyber threat both to government and to private enterprise, and

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Speaker 1: the fact that we are underprepared. Uh. And then also

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Speaker 1: that that he needed to to Uh. You know, he's

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Speaker 1: been outside of government now for quite a while and

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Speaker 1: he needed to sort of catch up and get briefed

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Speaker 1: on kind of what the current state of our cyber

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Speaker 1: defenses are and what needs to be done. So that'll

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Speaker 1: be a steep learning curve for him. Uh. And it's

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Speaker 1: a learning curve about an issue as to which the

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Speaker 1: FBI and U and the rest of the government needs

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Speaker 1: to be doing more. Thanks for being on Bloomberg Law.

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Speaker 1: That's Benjamin Wagner. He's a partner at Gibson Donne