A Look at the Candidates Trump Is Considering to Head the F.B.I.

By MAGGIE HABERMAN and JEREMY W. PETERS
MAY 12, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump has broadened his search for a new F.B.I. director in recent days, moving to install a leader who would be viewed as independent from the White House amid the backlash over his abrupt dismissal of James B. Comey.

Four candidates will be interviewed Saturday, according to a person familiar with the meetings: Andrew G. McCabe, the acting director of the F.B.I.; Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas; Judge Michael J. Garcia of the New York State Court of Appeals and the former United States attorney for the Southern District of New York; and Alice Fisher, a former top Justice Department official who would be the first woman to run the agency.

The timing of a nomination is far from clear; the White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, provided no firm timeline on Friday.

The candidate list is also said to be broader than those four. Mr. Trump has a long history of tossing names out as chum for public consumption, in part to throw people off the scent of what he is doing, and in part to test various options.

The candidates are being looked at, White House officials said, with a particular emphasis in mind: a lack of deep ties to Mr. Trump, to avoid the appearance that he wants to install a crony at the top of an agency that is investigating the activities of his presidential campaign.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein will conduct the interviews.

Here are some of the choices being discussed inside the White House:

Senator John Cornyn

Mr. Cornyn served as the Texas attorney general before being elected to the Senate in 2002, where he is the No. 2 Republican in the chamber. He is one of several possible candidates who are current and former members of the House and Senate.

Five Contradictions in the White House’s Story About Comey’s Firing

The Trump administration has offered conflicting answers about how and why the F.B.I. director, James Comey, was fired.

But an adviser to Mr. Cornyn said the senator made clear in a conversation with the president on Wednesday that, while open to discussing the post, he is happy in the Senate. The adviser was not authorized to discuss the internal discussions and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Andrew G. McCabe

Mr. Trump could also do something no president has: Elevate a senior F.B.I. official to be the next director. That would be seen as an olive branch to the bureau and would help avoid allegations that Mr. Trump was selecting a political loyalist.

Mr. McCabe, 49, is a career F.B.I. agent who was Mr. Comey’s deputy before moving in as acting director after Mr. Comey’s firing. He has been at the center of a number of high-profile counterterrorism investigations, including the one into the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the arrest and interrogation of a suspect in the 2012 attacks on the American compounds in Benghazi, Libya.

Judge Michael J. Garcia

Mr. Garcia spent nearly a decade as a federal prosecutor in New York City before President George W. Bush appointed him assistant secretary for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2003 and United States attorney two years later.

Before Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo appointed Mr. Garcia to New York State’s highest court in 2016, he worked in private practice and led a more than yearlong inquiry into FIFA, the global governing body of soccer that became the centerpiece of a sprawling corruption case announced by the United States in 2015. Mr. Garcia abruptly resigned from the investigation in 2014, disagreeing with the way the organization had characterized the results of his inquiry, which were never made public.

Alice Fisher

Ms. Fisher works as a white-collar criminal lawyer in Washington, and she ran the criminal division of the Justice Department during the second half of Mr. Bush’s administration.

J. Michael Luttig

Mr. Luttig is a former Justice Department lawyer and federal appeals court judge who was appointed by the first President George Bush. Widely admired by conservatives, Mr. Luttig left the bench in 2006 to become general counsel of Boeing, a position he still holds.

Representative Trey Gowdy

Mr. Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican and a former federal prosecutor, oversaw the Benghazi special investigation in the House. Many F.B.I. agents saw that inquiry as a boondoggle and view Mr. Gowdy as highly partisan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/u...-director.html