Now that James Comey has been fired from his position as FBI director, the speculation has begun as to who will succeed him. Who are some of the names being floated around as potential Comey replacements?
Here are five such candidates; the third one on the list will make you snort with laughter.
1. Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani has reportedly been considered by President Donald Trump to replace Comey, although Giuliani has denied he is interested in the job. However, he did say that he was going to visit the White House on Thursday, but said that it didn’t have anything to do with the FBI director opening.
Giuliani does have a legal background, most notably for being the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York. He was known for having a “grandstanding style”:
One of the lost legendary examples during his years as U.S. attorney was the arrest of three men involved in the insider trading scandal — Richard B. Wigton, a Kidder, Peabody executive; Timothy L. Tabor, a former employee of Kidder, Peabody; and Robert M. Freeman of Goldman, Sachs. Two of the men had been handcuffed at work and paraded in front of their colleagues, to the media’s delight. The charges against all three were later dropped.
2. Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke. Clarke has been named as a possible Comey replacement given his ardent support of Trump and his tough talk against Black Lives Matter, but Fox News points out that Clark would “be a long shot given that a county jury recently recommended criminal charges against seven Milwaukee County jail staffers in the dehydration death of an inmate who went without water for seven days.”
3. Chris Christie.
Between that and the fact that Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, seems to hold a grudge against Christie, it’s highly unlikely that Christie would actually replace Comey. But with Trump, you never know.
4. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.). Gowdy, who used to be a federal prosecutor, replacing Comey would curry favor with a lot of conservatives who have been fans of Gowdy for his tough talk against Hillary Clinton’s conduct on Benghazi. He also voiced disagreement with Comey’s refusal to recommend charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server, although he did acknowledge that Comey “had a very difficult job.”
5. Ray Kelly. The former New York Police Department (NYPD) commissioner would make the most sense, since Kelly served as the NYPD commissioner under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and prior to that he served in the Clinton administration as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary of enforcement. He would also receive bipartisan support, as both Republicans and Democrats have praised Kelly for his work in fighting against terrorism as NYPD commissioner by establishing a counter-terrorism bureau. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) even suggested that Kelly should run the Department of Homeland Security in 2013.
Some Democrats have been critical of Kelly’s use of stop-and-frisk during his tenure as NYPD commissioner but it worked, as crime declined under Kelly’s reign.