Christopher Wray

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  Christopher Wray

  Distinguished Visiting Fellow

  Short Bio

  Christopher Wray was FBI director from August 2017 until January 2025. He began working for the Justice Department in Atlanta in 1997 and in 2001 was appointed to positions in Washington, DC. Between stints in public service, he worked at the international law firm of King & Spalding LLP. He earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from Yale University.

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  Christopher Wray became the eighth director of the FBI on August 2, 2017. He led the Bureau’s 38,000 men and women around the globe for nearly eight years until he retired in January 2025. Under his leadership, the FBI confronted dangerous and complex threats from a relentless array of adversaries with an emphasis on people, partnerships, process, and innovation. Wray’s focus on partnerships brought about collective success for law enforcement across the world and a paradigm shift in FBI engagement with the private sector. As the landscape evolved, Wray implemented a new cyber strategy for the FBI to stay ahead of the threats, leveraging cutting-edge technology and joint, sequenced operations with intelligence community partners at home and abroad. Throughout his time with the Bureau, Wray focused on its workforce, visiting all fifty-five FBI field offices two or three times to connect with employees and partners on the front lines. Applications to the FBI soared during his tenure, and he never missed a special agent graduation.

  Writing in The Wall Street Journal upon Wray’s retirement, former FBI and CIA director William Webster described Wray as a “highly respected, widely admired and effective leader,” who led the Bureau with “extraordinary fidelity, bravery and integrity.

  Wray began his career in public service in 1997, serving in the Department of Justice as an assistant US attorney in Atlanta and prosecuting a wide variety of federal criminal cases. In 2001, he was appointed associate deputy attorney general and then principal associate deputy attorney general in Washington, DC, with responsibilities spanning the full department. He played an integral role in the US response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

  Wray was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2003, and unanimously confirmed by the Senate, to be the assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division, overseeing major national and international criminal investigations and prosecutions. At the conclusion of his tenure in the criminal division, Wray was awarded the Edmund J. Randolph Award, the department’s highest award for leadership and public service, an honor that he received again twenty years later as FBI director.

  Between stints in public service, Wray spent almost seventeen years at the international law firm of King & Spalding LLP He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and earned his law degree from Yale Law School. He is currently a distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution.

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