Class News

Joe Lieberman '64 interviewed to be FBI director

The New York Times

May 17, 2017

President Trump, hoping to nominate a new FBI director before leaving on a long foreign trip on Friday, interviewed four potential candidates on Wednesday, including Joseph I. Lieberman, the former senator from Connecticut.

The task of coming up with a credible replacement for James B. Comey, whom the president fired as director last week, has taken on new urgency over the last few days. Mr. Trump accelerated his search after The New York Times reported on Tuesday that he had pressured Mr. Comey to drop his investigation of Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, amid a broader FBI inquiry into possible collusion between the president’s 2016 campaign and Russian officials.

Several administration officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal White House deliberations, described a rushed and fluid process in which the president and Attorney General Jeff Sessions had swung nearly hour by hour on which candidate they preferred.

Mr. Lieberman’s name surfaced publicly for the first time on Wednesday after Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, added him to the list of candidates Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions were scheduled to interview before the president departs for a nine-day trip to the Middle East and Europe. Mr. Spicer said the other three candidates were the acting FBI director, Andrew G. McCabe; former Gov. Frank Keating of Oklahoma, a Republican; and Richard A. McFeely, a former top official at the FBI.

Mr. Trump is also considering a handful of other candidates, including Raymond W. Kelly, a former New York City police commissioner; Judge Michael J. Garcia of the New York State Court of Appeals; and Alice S. Fisher, a former Justice Department official. Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, took his name out of consideration on Tuesday.

Mr. Lieberman, 75, who served three terms in the Senate as a Democrat and one as an independent, is friendly with Mr. Sessions. He is also close to Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, who briefly considered Mr. Lieberman as his vice-presidential running mate in 2008. Mr. Lieberman was Al Gore’s Democratic running mate in the 2000 presidential campaign.

Mr. McCain suggested on Tuesday that reports that Mr. Trump had asked Mr. Comey to end the Flynn investigation conjured Richard Nixon’s actions during Watergate.