Will Trump Remove FBI Director Christopher Wray? Betting Market Gives This 78 Percent Chance

President-Elect Donald Trump plans to replace current FBI director with firebrand Kash Patel.  Caught in the crossfire is current FBI Director Christopher Wray, who Trump appointed in 2017. 

Typically, FBI directors serve a 10-year term but Wray has fallen out of favor with the incoming U.S. president.

Patel describes himself as an enemy of the so-called “deep state”.

“I am proud to announce that Kashyap ‘Kash’ Patel will serve as the next Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Kash is a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and ‘America First’ fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption, defending Justice, and protecting the American People,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Saturday evening.

Former Trump national security adviser John Bolton compared Patel to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s leader of secret police, the NKVD, telling CNN: “The Senate should reject this nomination 100-0.”

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan cautioned Sunday that the FBI director should not be subject to the “whims” of politics, but declined to weigh in directly on Patel.

“What makes the FBI director different from most other nominees is they’re not just appointed for one term of a president, they’re appointed for enough time to last past two terms of a president, because they’re supposed to be insulated from politics,” Sullivan told CNN’s Kasie Hunt on “State of the Union.”

Polymarket offered a betting market on whether Trump will ultimately replace Wray with some 78% believing he will.  That number is up from closer to 55 percent earlier in the month.

This market will resolve to “Yes” if Christopher Wray ceases to be the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for any period of time between January 20, 2025 ET (inclusive) and April 29, 2025, 11:59 PM ET. Otherwise, this market will resolve to “No”.

The resolution source for this market will be the U.S. government, however a consensus of credible reporting will also suffice.