Washington // President Donald Trump said on Saturday he would act quickly to appoint a new FBI director following his dismissal earlier this week of James Comey.
Trump’s administration – embroiled in a deepening crisis over the sacking and its shifting explanation of events – was expected to interview the first four candidates for the post on Saturday.
“We can make a fast decision,” Mr Trump said aboard Air Force One before flying to southern Virginia, where he delivered a commencement address at Liberty University, an evangelical Christian school.
The White House has provided no set timeline for the process of replacing Mr Comey, who Mr Trump described as an incompetent “showboat” and “grandstander.”
Asked if the decision or an announcement could take place before he leaves for Saudi Arabia on Friday, Mr Trump said: “Even that is possible.”
He described the candidates being considered for the post as “outstanding people,” “very well-known,” and of the “highest level.”
Attorney general Jeff Sessions and his deputy Rod Rosenstein were expected to interview acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, Texas Senator John Cornyn, former federal prosecutor Michael Garcia and former assistant attorney general Alice Fisher, The New York Times reported.
They are among a dozen candidates being considered for the job.
The choice of a new FBI director seen as independent from the White House will be closely scrutinised as Trump faces an avalanche of criticism for firing Mr Comey, the man in charge of a criminal probe into his campaign’s possible ties to Russia.
The 49-year-old Mr McCabe, a career FBI agent, has taken part in a number of high-profile investigations, including probes into the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013 and the attacks against US installations in Benghazi, Libya in 2012.
Mr McCabe contradicted Mr Trump this week, saying that Mr Comey enjoyed widespread support among the FBI’s rank and file, and that the probe into alleged Russian meddling in the election was a “highly significant investigation.”
Mr Cornyn, the number two Republican in the Senate, served as Texas attorney general before his election to the Senate in 2002.
Mr Garcia served as assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement and US attorney under former president George W Bush.
Ms Fisher headed the justice department’s criminal division, also under Mr Bush.
Other candidates include former New York police commissioner Raymond Kelly, former Republican senator Kelly Ayotte, and South Carolina congressman Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor who headed the Benghazi investigation in the House.
Mr Trump’s nominee must be confirmed in the Senate, where Democrats and some Republicans have fiercely criticised Mr Comey’s firing.
The president is reported to have asked Mr Comey whether he could be loyal to him during a dinner meeting in February shortly after his inauguration.
Mr Comey promised only that he could be honest, The New York Times reported.
Mr Trump denied that account in a Fox News interview on Friday.
In his first commencement address on Saturday Mr Trump urged graduates to follow their convictions but to also be willing to stand up to criticism from others who do not have the courage to do what is right.
The president kept to an upbeat message and did not mention the fallout over Mr Comey’s firing in his remarks.
Drawing parallels to what was widely viewed as a long-shot bid by Mr Trump for the presidency, he urged the more than 18,000 graduates to fight for what they believe in and to “challenge entrenched interests and failed power structures.”
A crowd of more than double that size filled an outdoor stadium on campus to welcome just the second sitting president to address the university’s commencement, after George H W Bush in 1990.
“Remember this: Nothing worth doing ever, ever, ever came easy,” Mr Trump said.
“Following your convictions means you must be willing to face criticism from those who lack the same courage to do what is right, and they know what is right but they don’t have the courage or the guts or the stamina to take it and to do it.”
* Agence France-Presse and Associated Press