For someone who played a tough-talking executive on TV — “You’re fired!” — Donald Trump sure goes out of his way to avoid such confrontations. The real-life Donald, as president, typically had a hireling do the deed, sent a letter to the media or simply tweeted the news.

But with FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, the president-elect took his passive-aggressive routine to a new level of humiliation.

Just after Thanksgiving, Trump posted 159 gushing words to announce that uber-loyalist grifter and fellow revenge seeker Kash Patel was his choice to be FBI director, and zero words acknowledging that Wray, Trump’s first-term pick for the job, had more than two years remaining on a 10-year term. For 11 excruciating days Wray twisted, until on Wednesday he accepted Trump’s unspoken invitation to go: Wray told FBI staff that he’d resign by Trump’s inauguration “to avoid dragging the bureau deeper into the fray.”

He shouldn’t have done that. For the good of the bureau and the nation, Wray should have stayed past Jan. 20, forcing Trump to fire him and bear full responsibility for brazenly politicizing an institution that, given its police powers, must be above partisanship. By quitting, Wray is complicit in normalizing what is anything but normal.

As Yale history professor Timothy Snyder advised citizens in the opening of his book “On Tyranny,” when dealing with would-be authoritarians, “Do not obey in advance.” That, Snyder argued, only teaches the power grabber what they can get away with.

The shameless Trump immediately sent out a fundraising email on the news of Wray’s surrender. “A great day for America,” he gloated in the solicitation and on social media.“

Hardly. Trump isn’t president yet and for the second time he’s starting by sacking an FBI director expressly because Wray, like James B. Comey before him in 2017, would not profess loyalty and drop well-deserved criminal investigations of Trump and his allies. And in an especially egregious example of the projection for which Trump is so well known, in each case he accused the FBI directors, both Republicans, of being the ones who politically weaponized the bureau — against him.

Just because Trump’s norm shattering no longer surprises doesn’t mean it shouldn’t shock. Yes, he’s entitled to fill his Cabinet with people of his choice — with the Senate’s approval, a constitutional hurdle he’s tried to duck — or to fire them. But federal law and Justice Department policies since the Watergate era put some unique guardrails between presidents and the FBI, given the proven potential for abuse of its vast law enforcement powers.

The director’s term — just one, of 10 years — was meant to be a primary constraint. Congress set the limit in 1976 in response to a confluence of FBI abuses: first by Director J. Edgar Hoover, whose dictatorial 48-year reign and wanton violations of Americans’ civil liberties ended only with his death in 1972, and then by President Nixon, who resigned in 1974 amid the Watergate scandals, including his use of the FBI to target those on his enemies list.

The point of the law was expressly to avoid directors-for-life such as Hoover, but also to keep the term long enough to overlap presidents’ four- or eight-year tenures and thus help insulate the director from White House political pressures.

As the Senate report on the law stated, an FBI director “is not an ordinary Cabinet appointment which is usually considered a politically oriented member of the President’s ‘team.’“ The combination of the value of the FBI’s criminal investigative powers together with their danger if perverted, the report added, “makes the office of FBI Director unique.”

Yet now we have a once and future president who insists that all his appointees be “team” players. To that end, Trump has now twice ignored the statutory 10-year term, unlike President Biden, who kept the Republican Wray in office without question. Trump seeks to install someone, Patel, who published a “Deep State” enemies list for Trump’s guidance — something of a resume sweetener in Trump world, it turns out — and has vowed “to destroy” the bureau and the Justice Department. And who, on the side, sells Trump-branded merch under the logo “K$H,” including children’s books depicting “King Donald” and Patel himself as the monarch’s avenging wizard.

Every FBI director since Hoover has been a Republican, and Democratic Presidents Carter, Clinton, Obama and Biden either chose them or kept them on to symbolize that the job is above politics. Before Trump’s two defenestrations, the only dumping of an FBI chief was Clinton’s firing of William Sessions after taking office in 1993. But Clinton acted on findings of Sessions’ ethical infractions after a probe begun under President George H.W. Bush.

The 1974 Senate report justifying a mandated 10-year term acknowledged that a president’s power to remove a director within that time “is formally unlimited.” But it suggested that the Senate, given its power to confirm a successor, would act as a check on that removal power — “and will tolerate its exercise for good reason only” and “not merely for the reason that a new President desires his ‘own man’ in the position.”

Alas, the authors didn’t anticipate today’s Senate Republicans, whose servility to the wrathful Trump exceeds their respect for the Senate’s prerogatives and independence. Not one has publicly opposed Patel’s confirmation. Never mind that when Trump, in his first term, tried to make Patel the FBI deputy director, then-Atty. Gen. William Barr said “over my dead body,” according to his memoir.

Now Barr is on the Patel-Trump enemies list. It was Wray’s turn to stand up to Trump and against Patel’s ascension, and to underscore by his inevitable firing how transgressive Trump’s action is. That Wray instead backed down is yet another bad omen for the next four years.

@jackiekcalmes

A top conservative grassroots group is launching a six-figure ad campaign to support the swift confirmation of President-elect Trump’s Cabinet nominees.

The $150,000 static digital ad campaign will target nine states with a “soft appeal” to voters who might, in turn, contact their senators and express how Trump “has a mandate from the American people,” Heritage Action for America Vice President Ryan Walker said Thursday.

Walker said the $150,000 is the first tranche of $1 million the group has allocated through Inauguration Day to push for Americans to ask their senators to support the nominees.

The first ad of the campaign sought to bolster Defense Secretary-nominee Pete Hegseth, and the overall initial ad buy will last through Dec. 31.

CONSERVATIVE GROUP REGISTERS 50K VOTERS IN SWING STATES

Other ads have or will highlight former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, Kash Patel and former Florida Attorney General Pamela Bondi – all of whom are Trump Cabinet nominees.

This initial buy, Walker said, focuses on Alaska, Maine, Louisiana, Iowa, North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Utah, South Dakota and Washington, D.C.

While most similar advertising campaigns may seek to appeal to voters in “swing states” or in a particular region of the country, the states included here have a unique link, Walker said.

Some of the states included in the first ad buy are home to senators who either appear on the fence or have not stated a solid commitment for or against nominees like Hegseth, Gabbard and Patel.

Alaska and Maine are represented by two high-profile moderate Republicans – Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, respectively. 

PROJECT 2025 REMAINS NONPARTISAN, TRUE TO 1980S GOOD-GOV’T INCEPTION DESPITE WILD OUTCRY: KEY FIGURES

Kash Patel and President-elect Trump (Getty Images)

Both women voted to impeach Trump, but both also were supportive of some of the president-elect’s policies as well. 

“[Trump has] really about 18 months to get a substantial amount of his agenda through before the midterms. And time is of the essence in getting these folks, these Cabinet nominees, in a timely manner,” Walker said.

“Uniting the Republican conference around them is what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

Walker said Heritage Action is focusing on public commentary from senators in the target states, and also is very much in tune with which nominees are in the news or spending time on Capitol Hill on certain days.

Last week and this week, Hegseth made the rounds seeking support for his confirmation, so the campaign began with the former Fox News host, Walker suggested.

Next week, Health and Human Services Secretary-nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to visit Washington for the same purpose, and the advertising campaign is ready to pivot to focus on the Democratic Party scion if necessary.

“We want to remain flexible in this campaign to be able to highlight in different states… or different nominees, depending on what the conversation is in the Senate,” Walker said, adding a direct-text-message campaign will also follow this initial advertising endeavor.

Trump and RFK Jr. (Getty)

“Then we’re likely to do a television ad,” he said, adding he hopes to air it on national media on Inauguration Day.

Heritage Action also employs grassroots activists nationwide to forward conservative principles at the state-government level.

A board member of the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California has been censured for making a racist remark about an Arab American employee.

The MWD board of directors voted to censure John Morris, a member representing the city of San Marino, after an investigation found that he used a racist term when he referred to a staff member at a board event last year. The district said the investigation was conducted in response to an anonymous complaint and determined that Morris’ remark violated the MWD’s antidiscrimination policy.

Mohsen Mortada, the district’s chief of staff, said in a recent letter that during a December 2023 visit to Gene Camp, a facility in the desert, Mortada overheard an MWD director refer to him as a “camel jockey.” He did not name the board member who uttered the slur, but officials confirmed that the incident he described was the same that led to the public rebuke of Morris.

Mortada, an American citizen who emigrated from Syria in 1987, said in the letter that he did not file a formal complaint, but was later interviewed by an investigator.

As part of the action, the 38-member board voted to cease funding for Morris’ travel, bar him from representing the agency at events and require him to receive counseling.

“Metropolitan cannot and will not tolerate racist comments from its leaders,” said Adán Ortega Jr., chair of the MWD board. “While we are not able to directly remove a director from our board, we have taken the measures we can to demonstrate that we absolutely do not tolerate this type of behavior.”

The agency said it was notifying the city of San Marino of the decision.

The San Marino city manager’s office said in an email to The Times that it “strongly condemns the use of racially motivated speech and biases against any individual anywhere at any time.”

“The San Marino City Council will consider and take the appropriate course of action as soon as possible,” the email said.

Morris — who according to a biography on the MWD website has been a board member since 1990 — responded briefly to questions from other members, indicating he did not contest the findings of the investigation. He declined a request for comment from The Times.

The censure comes as the MWD investigates harassment allegations against Adel Hagekhalil, the water district’s first Arab American general manager.

Hagekhalil has denied wrongdoing, and his lawyer and others have said they are concerned that discriminatory anti-Arab sentiments among some board members could affect their handling of the investigation.

The investigation of Morris’ remark did not involve Hagekhalil, Ortega said. But as part of the censure, the board barred Morris from taking part in deliberations and votes regarding the Hagekhalil investigation.

Hagekhalil’s lawyer, Kerry Garvis Wright, claimed at Tuesday’s meeting that anti-Arab sentiment is a larger issue for the board.

“While Mr. Hagekhalil has always had a positive relationship with the board as a whole, we have recently learned that certain directors charged with deciding his fate have made overtly anti-Arab and Islamophobic statements,” Garvis Wright said.

“That such anti-Arab and Islamophobic sentiment is held by these directors is, of course, itself deeply disturbing and frankly sickening. Knowing that these same directors are being permitted to decide whether Mr. Hagekhalil will continue to serve the district, in the face of what are otherwise bogus complaints, is shocking and wrong,” she said. “The board must take immediate corrective action.”

Adan Ortega Jr., board chair of the Metropolitan Water District, listens during a meeting on Dec. 10.

(Kevin Mapp/Metropolitan Water District of Southern California)

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Garvis Wright did not mention any board members by name.

Mortada said in his recent letter that he was “writing to inform you of outrageous racist comments made by Metropolitan directors that bring bias and discrimination to the Board and its investigative process.”

Portions of Mortada’s letter were redacted in the version the MWD released to The Times. Rebecca Kimitch, a spokesperson, said the district determined that parts of the letter were exempt from disclosure because they included allegations that are either unsubstantiated, currently under investigation, or being considered for possible investigation.

Civil rights advocates have also voiced concerns about potential discrimination. The Council on American-Islamic Relations told the district earlier this year that Hagekhalil has been “subjected to discriminatory and racist actions and behaviors” by some board members.

Amr Shabaik, the council’s legal director in Los Angeles, told the MWD board in an October letter that board members have allegedly used “derogatory terms against immigrants, Muslims, and Arabs.”

“Such alleged statements include the following: ‘When are we going to get rid of those refugees?’ ‘When are we going to hire someone that we can pronounce their last name?’” Shabaik wrote. “These remarks are indicative of a strong animus and unlawful discriminatory intent by Board members.”

Shabaik said the decision to censure Morris is “a step in the right direction.” But he also said it “does not necessarily indicate that all the issues and all the concerns have been addressed.”

During Tuesday’s meeting, board members agreed that Morris’ remark was unacceptable.

“It’s not OK,” said Gail Goldberg, the board’s vice chair. “We have to think about the integrity of the organization and what our values are.”

Morris spoke briefly several times during the hourlong discussion, but he did not offer an apology. Some board members said that did not sit well with them.

Ortega said he had doubts about a provision of the sanctions against Morris that allows for a committee to consider after one year whether Morris could be allowed to again fully participate in the board’s activities.

“What is he rehabilitating for if he’s not accepting any responsibility?” Ortega asked his fellow board members.

Morris replied: “It was not my intent to say I’m not accepting any responsibility. That was not my intent.”

The vote was nearly unanimous. Board member Ardy Kassakhian abstained, saying he was troubled by Morris’ lack of contrition and a discussion among board members that he felt largely danced around the gravity of the issue. He said it’s deplorable how people of Middle Eastern descent continue to be “targeted and picked on.”

“I don’t know if Mr. Morris said what he said as a punchline to a joke, or if it was something he said in the passing moment, but the term itself applied to any other minority group, group of color, said in even the most innocuous way, would not be tolerated,” said Kassakhian, who represents Glendale.

After the vote, Kassakhian said he felt “stronger actions are essential to demonstrate that we as the Metropolitan leadership unequivocally embody these principles of equity and justice.”

“We need to address instances like this directly, openly and decisively,” Kassakhian said. “MWD has done a lot of work to try and address these types of issues, and I think this incident shows how fragile the work is and how much more we can do.”

Ortega said he shares the concerns Kassakhian raised. He said he is using his authority as board chair to remove Morris as vice chair of a subcommittee working on plans for a large water recycling facility, and will only appoint him to a minimal number of committees as required under the agency’s rules.

“Mr. Morris never verbalized an apology, and he was given multiple opportunities,” Ortega said. “We need to recognize that there were individuals here that were denigrated and that an apology is due to them.”