U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland praised FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday as a leader who served the U.S. ‘honorably and with integrity’ for two decades in the hours after Wray announced his plans to step down at the end of Biden’s presidency.

In a statement Wednesday, Garland lauded Wray’s multi-decade career as a civil servant and U.S. prosecutor, including as U.S. assistant attorney general and the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

‘Chris Wray has served our country honorably and with integrity for decades, including for seven years as the Director of the FBI under presidents of both parties,’ Garland wrote Wednesday. 

‘In a heightened threat environment, Director Wray has worked tirelessly to protect the American people and to lead an agency of 38,000 dedicated public servants, many of whom put their lives on the line every day to serve their communities,’ Garland wrote, praising his role in working to fulfill the Justice Department’s mission ‘to keep our country safe, protect civil rights, and uphold the rule of law.’

‘He has led the FBI’s efforts to aggressively confront the broad range of threats facing our country — from nation-state adversaries and foreign and domestic terrorism to violent crime, cybercrime, and financial crime,’ Garland said. ‘There are few leadership positions more central to keeping the American people safe than the Director of the FBI.’

The statement came shortly after Wray announced his plans to resign at Wednesday’s FBI town hall in Washington, D.C., which was attended by thousands of FBI employees virtually and in person. President-elect Donald Trump announced shortly after his election victory last month his nomination of Kash Patel to succeed Wray, giving Wray the option to either exit on his own or be fired after Trump takes office.

Patel told Fox News on Wednesday that he’s seeking a ‘smooth transition’ to replace Wray.

‘After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down,’ Wray told employees during the town hall. ‘My goal is to keep the focus on our mission, the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day. In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.’

In his statement, Garland emphasized the role the FBI director plays in protecting the agency’s independence from what he described as ‘inappropriate influence in its criminal investigations. … That independence is central to preserving the rule of law and to protecting the freedoms we as Americans hold dear.’

‘Director Wray has done that job with integrity and skill,’ Garland wrote Wednesday. ‘He has my gratitude, the gratitude of the FBI agents and employees whose respect and admiration he has earned, and the gratitude of the American people.’

Longtime Biden confidante and former senior adviser Anita Dunn criticized the president’s handling of his son Hunter’s pardon on Wednesday, saying that she disagreed with the ‘timing’ and the ‘rationale’ while describing it as an ‘attack on our judicial system.’

‘Had this pardon been done at the end of the term in the context of compassion the way many pardons will be done, I’m sure, and many commutations will be done, I think it would have been a different story,’ Dunn told a New York Times panel at the DealBook Summit 2024.

‘So I will say, I absolutely agree with the president’s decision here, I do not agree with the way it was done, I don’t agree with the timing, and I don’t agree frankly with the attack on our judicial system.’

When asked by the moderator to elaborate on her ‘attack on our judicial system comment,’ Dunn said, ‘I think the president’s statement has to be taken at its face value and clearly, like everyone else in the world, he has the prerogative of changing his mind, and that is indeed what he kind of said and he did there.’ 

‘I think that from a Democratic Party perspective, from a Democratic perspective, as we were in the midst of the president-elect rolling out his nominees and in particular in the middle of a Kash Patel weekend, kind of throwing this into the middle of it was exceptionally poor timing, and that the argument is one that I think many observers are concerned about a president who ran to restore the rule of law, who has upheld the rule of law, who has really defended the rule of law, kind of saying, ‘well, maybe not right now,” she said.

Dunn, who served as a political strategist and adviser to Biden on his 2020 campaign and a senior adviser in the Biden White House until leaving for the Harris campaign this summer, went on to reiterate that she agrees with the pardon, but disagreed with the ‘timing,’ the ‘argument’ and the ‘rationale.’

Fox News Digital reached out to White House but did not immediately receive a response. 

Dunn added that she was never part of any conversation at the White House about pardoning Hunter besides what to tell the press, which she says was a one-word answer: ‘No.’

Dunn’s comments come as recent polling shows that Biden’s decision to pardon Hunter after previously vowing on several occasions he would not give his son a pass has the approval of only 20% of Americans.

Dunn’s comments drew immediate reaction on social media, including from former Jill Biden press secretary Michael LaRose, who posted on X, ‘Yikes.’

President Biden attempted to make the case when he pardoned his son earlier this month that Hunter had been unfairly prosecuted. 

‘Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,’ Biden wrote in a statement at the time. ‘From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.’

‘Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form,’ Biden added. ‘Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.’

The president also referenced his son’s battle with addiction and blamed ‘raw politics’ for the unraveling of Hunter’s plea deal.

‘There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,’ the 82-year-old father wrote. ‘In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.’

A Marine lieutenant colonel from Ohio who publicly spoke out against the Afghanistan withdrawal will lead rank-and-file service members door-to-door in the Senate next week in support of defense nominee Pete Hegseth.

Stuart Scheller, who was imprisoned in a Jacksonville, N.C., brig for his public criticisms of military brass, told Fox News Digital Wednesday he is organizing enlisted men and women to engage with senators next Wednesday.

Scheller stressed that service members who are participating are not prominent fellows at think tanks or in any governmental or related seats of power. 

‘Pete has made public comments that he wants to move to a meritocracy, and he believes that we need more courage in the ranks. So, I’m not saying that I wouldn’t have been reprimanded [if he was secretary],’ Scheller said.

‘I still think there probably was some reprimand that needed to happen, but it would go across the board.

‘The difference is, if Pete was the secretary of defense, the general officers would have also been held accountable [for the botched withdrawal], and I would not have had to go to the lengths that I had to go to bring attention to the situation.’

Scheller said that, in the last decade or two, the U.S. military is ‘not winning anything, and we need to turn it into a winning organization.’

Scheller said Hegseth has planned to hold accountable Pentagon leaders who have ‘become stagnant’ in the lieutenant colonel’s words.

He also stressed that Hegseth is the first Pentagon nominee in decades who is not from the officer corps or defense contracting firms.

Outgoing Secretary Lloyd Austin III is a retired CENTCOM general but also came from the board of Raytheon.

‘Forty years to become a four-star general really removes you from the forces,’ Scheller said of the past several officer-corps secretary choices overall.

‘Pete’s middle management — a major. I mean, he’s like the perfect guy … and he’s been sitting here talking to veterans when he was developing his book, trying to understand their pulse and the heartbeat. So, that book that he wrote probably prepared him in terms of the current culture and sentiment and frustrations more than any other secretary of defense.’

As for his plans for the Hill next week, Scheller said he and fellow service members are focused on those who may appear to be on the fence about Hegseth.

‘I’m looking for more [of] the right people than the total quantity,’ he said.

Scheller will also release a video announcing his Wednesday mission.

‘[Hegseth] is a combat veteran from our generation and … he’s not a puppet for the military industrial complex. He’s not going to end up on one of their boards like every general officer of our generation,’ Scheller says in the video.

‘I’m going to be in Washington, D.C., walking through the halls of the U.S. Senate, talking to all the U.S. senators, advocating for peace.’

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, signaled he is not finished with his oversight of FBI Director Christopher Wray’s handling of the bureau, even after the intelligence official announced he was stepping down.

Jordan said Wray’s resignation was ‘great’ news and lambasted his handling of the FBI in comments to Fox News Digital on Wednesday.

‘I mean, Chris Wray was, you know, investigating moms and dads who show up for school board meetings. He was putting out a memorandum on saying, ‘If you’re a pro-life Catholic, you’re an extremist.’ The FBI retaliated against whistleblowers who came and gave us that kind of information. We learned yesterday that they were spying on congressional staffers and their metadata. And of course, he raided President Trump’s home,’ Jordan said.

Wray previously denied targeting pro-life activists. He also defended the FBI’s handling of a Department of Justice (DOJ) memo raising alarms about conduct at school board meetings, though he said last year that there was ‘no compelling nationwide law enforcement justification’ for the directive to be issued.

Jordan has made no secret of his thoughts on Wray’s leadership, overseeing multiple inquiries by the House Judiciary Committee into his leadership.

When asked by Fox News Digital if that oversight will continue, Jordan said, ‘Oh, yeah.’

‘And there’s, we think, reports coming that are going to, you know, shed even more light on what’s been going on down line from the from the inspector general,’ Jordan said.

He also praised President-elect Trump’s new nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel.

Fox News first reported Wray’s intent to resign seven years into his 10-year term earlier on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Trump’s pick to replace him had already been meeting with senators for days ahead of an anticipated confirmation hearing.

‘After weeks of careful thought, I’ve decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current Administration in January and then step down. My goal is to keep the focus on our mission — the indispensable work you’re doing on behalf of the American people every day,’ Wray told FBI colleagues. ‘In my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray, while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important to how we do our work.’   

Jordan told Fox News Digital he was not surprised at Wray’s decision.

‘I mean when the president nominates someone to replace you, you’ve got to go, man,’ Jordan said.

Roughly half of Americans approve of how President-elect Trump is handling his transition to a second term in the White House, according to two new national polls.

Fifty-five percent of Americans said they largely approve of how the president-elect is handling the transition from the Biden to Trump administrations, according to a CNN poll released Wednesday.

That’s a higher percentage compared to eight years ago, when Trump first won the White House, but it’s still well behind other recent presidents, according to CNN polling.

Meanwhile, 47% of people questioned in a Marist Poll also released Tuesday gave the former and future president a thumbs up when it comes to how he’s handling the transition, with 39% disapproving and 14% unsure.

Not surprisingly, the Marist survey indicates a massive partisan divide on the question, with 86% of Republicans approving of how the GOP president-elect is handling the transition. But 72% of Democrats disapproved. Among independents, 43% disapproved and 38% approved.

‘Although more people support Trump’s transition than oppose it, more independents are taking a wait-and-see position than more partisan voters,’ Marist Institute for Public Opinion Director Lee Miringoff said.

Miringoff added that ‘a note of caution for President-elect Trump is that fewer voters approve of the transition than gave a thumbs up to either Biden or Obama at this point.’

Marist questioned 3,131 adults nationwide from Dec. 3-5 for its survey, which had an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.

The CNN poll was conducted Dec. 5-8, with an overall sampling error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

The release of the polls came as Trump’s cabinet picks continued to meet with senators on Capitol Hill ahead of confirmation hearings starting next month.

Trump named his nominees for his cabinet and his choices for other top administration officials at a faster pace than he did eight years ago after his first White House victory.

But his transition has already faced some setbacks, including his first attorney general nominee, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, ending his bid for confirmation amid controversy over allegations he paid for sex with underage girls.

Trump last weekend made his first international trip since defeating Vice President Kamala Harris in last month’s election, and he was courted by world leaders during a stop in Paris.

Trump will be inaugurated Jan. 20.

According to the CNN poll, 54% of Americans say they expect Trump to do a good job as president once he takes over the White House. 

The House voted Wednesday to pass its yearly defense bill that would give junior enlisted troops a significant pay bump and work to eliminate DEI programs at the Pentagon.

It passed 281-140, with 16 Republicans voting no. Only 81 Democrats voted yes – 124 voting no – a much larger margin than in years passed when the legislation typically enjoyed bipartisan support. 

Many Democrats opposed a provision of the bill that restricts coverage of transgender treatments for minors. 

The legislation now heads to the Senate for passage before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk for signature. 

The 1,800-page bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), details how $895.2 billion allocated toward defense and national security will be spent. It will be voted on more than two months after the start of the fiscal year. 

The $895.2 billion represents a 1% increase over last year’s budget, a smaller number than some defense hawks would have liked. 

A significant portion of the legislation focused on quality-of-life improvements for service members amid record recruitment issues, a focus of much bipartisan discussion over the last year. That includes a 14.5% pay increase for junior enlisted troops and increasing access to child care for service members while also providing job support to military spouses.

The measure authorizes a 4.5% across-the-board pay raise for all service members starting Jan. 1. 

The NDAA typically enjoys wide bipartisan support, but this year’s focus on eliminating ‘woke’ policies could be hard for Democrats to stomach.

The policy proposal to prohibit Tricare, the military’s health care provider, from covering transgender services for the minor dependents of service members has raised concerns, prompting the leading Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, to reconsider his support for the bill.

‘Blanketly denying health care to people who clearly need it, just because of a biased notion against transgender people, is wrong,’ he said in a statement. ‘This provision injected a level of partisanship not traditionally seen in defense bills.’

The goal of that provision is to prevent any ‘medical interventions that could result in sterilization’ of minors.

Other provisions, like a blanket ban on funding for gender transition surgeries for adults, did not make their way into the bill, neither did a ban on requiring masks to prevent the spread of diseases. 

The bill also supports deploying the National Guard to the southern border to help with illegal immigrant apprehensions and drug flow. 

Another provision opens the door to allowing airmen and Space Force personnel to grow facial hair; it directs the secretary of the Air Force to brief lawmakers on ‘the feasibility and advisability’ of establishing a pilot program to test out allowing beards. 

Democrats are also upset the bill did not include a provision expanding access to IVF for service members. Currently, military health care only covers IVF for troops whose infertility is linked to service-related illness or injury.

But the bill did not include an amendment to walk back a provision allowing the Pentagon to reimburse service members who have to travel out of state to get an abortion.

The bill extends a hiring freeze on DEI-related roles and stops all such recruitment until ‘an investigation of the Pentagon’s DEI programs’ can be completed.

It also bans the Defense Department from contracting with advertising companies ‘that blacklist conservative news sources,’ according to an internal GOP memo.

The memo said the NDAA also guts funding for the Biden administration’s ‘Countering Extremist Activity Working Group’ dedicated to rooting out extremism in the military’s ranks. The annual defense policy bill also does not authorize ‘any climate change programs’ and prohibits the Pentagon from issuing climate impact-based guidance on weapons systems.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., touted $31 billion in savings in the legislation that would come from cutting ‘inefficient programs, obsolete weapons, and bloated Pentagon bureaucracy.’

The compromise NDAA bill, negotiated between Republican and Democrat leadership, sets policy for the nation’s largest government agency, but a separate defense spending bill must be passed to allocate funds for such programs.