page_title: Christopher A. Wray
section_title: Government service
hierarchical_section_title: Christopher A. Wray / Career / Government service
caption_attribution_description: Director Christopher Wray and his wife, Helen Wray, stand during the Pledge of Allegiance as part of his formal installation ceremony at FBI Headquarters on September 28, 2017. Wray, a former U.S. attorney and assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, was formally sworn in August 2, 2017 in a private ceremony. Full story: www.fbi.gov/news/stories/director-wray-installation-ceremony
context_page_description: Christopher Asher Wray is an American lawyer who, since 2017, has served as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. From 2003 to 2005 Wray served as Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division in the George W. Bush Administration. From 2005 to 2016 he was a litigation partner with the law firm King & Spalding.
context_section_description: Wray joined the government in 1997 as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia. In 2001, he moved to the Justice Department as Associate Deputy Attorney General and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General.
  On June 9, 2003, President George W. Bush nominated Wray to be the 33rd Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division of the Justice Department. Wray was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on September 11, 2003. Wray was Assistant Attorney General from 2003 to 2005, working under Deputy Attorney General James Comey. While heading the Criminal Division, Wray oversaw prominent fraud investigations, including Enron. In a May 30, 2013 Washingtonian.com article, Garrett M. Graff revealed that Wray was one of the senior Justice Dept officials who nearly resigned in 2004, alongside then FBI Director Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General James Comey, due to illegal surveillance techniques the Bush administration had put in place under the Terrorist Surveillance Program. In March 2005, Wray announced that he would resign from his post. His last day at the Justice Department was on May 17, 2005.
  In 2005, Wray received the Edmund J. Randolph Award, the Justice Department's highest award for public service and leadership.
caption: Christopher Wray and wife Helen in 2017
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