Wray’s FBI agents were also involved in the investigation of the events surrounding the January 6 assault on the Capitol and Trump’s attempt to delay and overturn the certification of the 2020 election by the Congress. Using evidence accumulated by the FBI, the Department of Justice empaneled two grand juries in Washington D.C. which brought indictments of the former president for violating at least three federal crimes, including his attempt to use falsified electoral ballots to confuse and delay the certification of actual, legal electoral ballots by the Congress.

Evidence gathered by the FBI, including video surveillance tapes and interviews with Mar-a-Lago employees, was used to indict Trump for obstruction of justice when he instructed his employees to conceal classified documents from the FBI and order the destruction of other evidence, chiefly video tapes of Trump employees moving boxes of classified documents from one room to another before the FBI searched the premises in August of 2022.

The classified document indictments were dismissed by Trump’s hand-puppet, Florida Judge Eileen Cannon, in July of this year on a discredited and demonstrably false legal theory that Special Counsel Jack Smith had been illegally appointed. Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland under a provision of Department of Justice policy that has been used multiple times in the past, including during Watergate and the investigation of the Iran-Contra scandal. No court has ever found the appointment of a Special Counsel to be outside the bounds of established DOJ procedure and law.

Special Counsel Smith filed a motion in late November to dismiss the charges against Trump for plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, acting in accordance with DOJ policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted for violating federal crimes. Since Trump was elected on November 5 and will be inaugurated on January 20, Smith concluded that Trump will soon be a sitting president and thus cannot face indictment. In his motion to dismiss, however, Smith noted that the prohibition of indicting Trump as a sitting president “is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind.”

Wray’s resignation sets a distressing precedent for any future investigations of federal crimes committed by senior government officials or powerful and wealthy public figures. Trump and his mouthpieces have wielded a battering ram of public criticism of Wray and FBI agents, accusing them of violating the law in the manner by which they went about investigating Trump’s January 6 actions and his removal of classified documents from the White House. Trump made Wray and the FBI an issue throughout his campaign for the White House, claiming falsely that he had been singled out for investigation and prosecution by an “out of control” DOJ and FBI.

At least three grand juries heard evidence of crimes Trump committed in the January 6 and classified documents cases and returned indictments based on that evidence.

Multiple Trump associates have pleaded guilty in cases involving the January 6 plot to overturn the election, including at least three of Trump’s attorneys, two of whom were charged with facilitating the fake elector scheme. Trump associates, including his attorneys, still face state indictments in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Trump has sworn to pardon the insurgents convicted of crimes on January 6, including more than 100 charged with violence against police officers. He will not be able to pardon his associates and lawyers who face indictments for committing state crimes.

Trump had appointed one of his chief lackeys, Patel, to serve as the replacement of Wray after he fired the FBI Director. That Wray has said he will resign before being fired is a total capitulation to Donald Trump’s wringing the last meaning from the rule of law in this country, which has held, since the signing of the Constitution, that no one is above the law. Trump’s Supreme Court destroyed that long-time American principle by ruling that Trump, and any other president, is absolutely immune from prosecution for crimes they commit as part of their “official duties” and presumed immune from crimes committed during unofficial acts while in office.

In addition, the Supreme Court found that evidence of crimes resulting from Trump’s conversations with government officials, such as employees of the DOJ, cannot be used to prove that such crimes were committed. One Supreme Court justice pointed out that evidence of bribery would be inadmissible if Trump used a government employee to collect a bribe.

That is how total the disintegration of the rule of law has become, because Donald Trump was able to appoint three of the arch-conservative justices on the Supreme Court who have carried out his will in the immunity decision and in others. The resignation of Christopher Wray is yet another nail in the coffin of our system of laws and Constitutional norms. By resigning even before Trump fired him, Wray will not be present as head of the FBI between now and January 20 to help protect the agency to which he has given his professional life.

Trump has screamed at his rallies and given interviews denouncing the FBI and the DOJ as parts of the so-called “deep state” and vowed to wreak retribution on the people who work there. Wray could use the time before Trump takes office to give speeches defending his agency and the FBI agents who have worked under him and followed his orders to carry out the investigation of Trump and others for breaking the law. While Wray cannot do anything to stop Trump from indicting the FBI agents who have worked under him, he could stand up to Trump and tell the world that his FBI agents are innocent men and women and were only doing their duty and following their oaths to support and defend the Constitution.

Wray’s resignation is like leaving a wounded comrade on the battlefield and running for cover. Maybe Wray can use his status as a former FBI director to help raise money to pay the lawyers that will be needed to defend the agents who worked under him when they searched Mar-a-Lago and found hundreds of classified documents. Trump has sworn to prosecute those agents, and Kash “I’ll follow any order you give me” Patel has said he will use the FBI to carry out retribution against any “enemy” Trump points him at.

This is a sad day for the FBI and for this country. If more government officials act the way Christopher Wray acted today, we will have many, many sad days ahead of us. This is the way that great nations fall: when people give in to authoritarian despots before they are even under their rule.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist, novelist, and screenwriter. He has covered Watergate, the Stonewall riots, and wars in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels. You can subscribe to his daily columns at luciantruscott.substack.com and follow him on Twitter @LucianKTruscott and on Facebook at Lucian K. Truscott IV.

Reprinted with permission from Lucian Truscott Newsletter.