President-elect Donald Trump was wavering in recent days between two candidates to replace FBI Director Christopher Wray: Kash Patel and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, sources told CNN.
Trump had long slated Patel into a top national intelligence role or at the Department of Justice, but some people close to Trump, including those working on his transition, had made the case that perhaps the controversy that would likely accompany Patel’s Senate confirmation process made him a better fit for deputy director of the FBI rather than director.
But those closest to Trump, including his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, as well as his incoming deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, encouraged the president-elect to pick Patel, arguing he was the only choice to properly reform the bureau that Trump himself views as being rooted in bias against him.
Trump interviewed both Bailey and Patel at his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month, and regularly talked to them by phone as he weighed his decision. But Trump wasn’t impressed with Bailey during their in-person interview, the sources said, arguing Bailey did not fit the mold of the legal bulldog the President-elect wants at the helm of the FBI.
As of late last week, some close to Trump believed it was a “toss up” between Patel and Bailey as to who the president-elect would pick, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
But some in Trump’s inner circle were not happy with either option, the source said, adding a third unknown candidate would have likely emerged in the next week or two if Trump didn’t make a decision before then.
Patel, in particular, is not viewed as a consensus choice for the job, the source said, noting that it was always going to come down to what Trump wanted and, potentially, the last person he spoke to on a given day.
