In recent years, FBI Director Christopher Wray has clashed with President-elect Trump.

In an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes”, Wray explained why he resigned “in such a dangerous period” and had nearly three years remaining in his tenure.

Scott Pelley, the host of “Scott Pelley’s Morning Show”, asked: “If this is such a dangerous period, why not resign?”

Wray, who is 58 years old, was just outlining what he believed were the greatest threats to the United States, from China’s ability attack US critical infrastructure, to domestic terrorists such as Shamsuddin Jabbar, an attacker in New Orleans, who “radicalized not in years but in weeks.”

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Wray said that his decision to retire was “one of the most difficult decisions I have ever made.”

The departing FBI chief said that, while he is deeply committed to the FBI and its “people,” his decision not to stay on after only serving seven years of a ten-year tenure was motivated by Donald Trump’s desire for a new leadership in the bureau. Wray announced his resignation in December.

“The President-elect made it clear that he wanted to make changes… I concluded that the best thing for the Bureau was to go about this in a calm and orderly manner. Wray stated that the bureau should not be dragged into the fray.

Wray is a 1997 graduate of Yale Law School and joined the DOJ as a lawyer in 1997. Trump nominated him to lead the bureau after firing the FBI Director at the time, James Comey, in 2017.

Trump and Wray’s relationship has deteriorated since the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, after Trump was accused of having classified documents at his residence.

Wray said on “60 Minutes” that “our job as FBI agents is to follow facts wherever they may lead, regardless of who likes them.”

Wray inflamed tensions between Trump and Wray after he asked whether Trump was really shot by a bullet during his July 2023 rally in Butler Pennsylvania.

Wray said to House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R – Ohio) during a hearing about the attack, “There’s some doubt as to whether it was a bullet or a shrapnel which hit his ear.”

In a New York Post statement, Trump’s campaign spokesperson and the incoming White House Communications Director slammed Wray for peddling “conspiracy bulls—t” to “political reasons”.

Trump nominated Kashyap Patel, a long-time ally of his, to succeed Wray at the Bureau.

Patel, 44 years old, served as a member of Trump’s National Security Council and wrote the book Government Gangsters. He was one of Trump’s controversial choices.

William H. Webster (100), former Reagan CIA chief, wrote to Senators urging them to not confirm Patel. He said that his confirmation would “set a dangerous precedent.”

Trump wrote on Truth Social that Wray’s resignation was a “great day” for America, as it would end the weaponization of the United States Department of Injustice. Wray announced his resignation to the public in December 2024.

Wray stated that China was the biggest threat to the United States during his interview with “60 Minutes”.

He said that the Chinese government was prepositioning itself on U.S. critical civilian infrastructure in order to lay in wait and cause real harm to those networks at any time or place they chose.