I have refrained from criticizing Chris Wray, but this is not a good look. Jim Baker is one of the very finest public servants in the national security establishment. washingtonpost.com/amphtml/world/…
Nobody will begrudge Wray picking his own team over time. But when the Bureau is under fire from the political echelon—including the President—it is no time to be doing anything that anyone will confuse with cleaning house or appeasing those who would politicize law enforcement.
This will play exactly the wrong way on Fox News and in the conservative media ecosystem, who will see it as the beginning of the purge they have been calling for. It will also play badly within the FBI, where it will been as a director who caved at the expense of his people.
This is particularly the case because Baker has been the subject recently of a smear campaign—not as bad as the one directed at Andrew McCabe but pretty bad—that everyone who knows him has known is absurd.
I sincerely hope the inevitable perceptions are incorrect at that this is just an exceedingly ill-timed leadership transition. But if that's the case, Wray really needs a good consiglieri to advise him on such matters. Someone like, oh, say, Jim Baker. Oh, well.
Sorry, for the typo above. It was meant to say, that Baker's removal "will be seen . . ."
I have known Baker a long time. He's an excellent lawyer. He's a smart thinker. And he's a good person. He is exactly the sort of person Chris Wray should not be getting rid of.
Here's an extended interview he did with @Susan_Hennessey on the @lawfareblog podcast recently: lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcas…
It says an enormous amount about this administration that it cannot keep people like Chuck Rosenberg and Jim Baker—and that in the latter case, it apparently doesn't even want to.
That's all I got.
