FBI Director Chris Wray Tells Employees: 'Talk Is Cheap'

“The work you do is what will endure,” he says after release of the GOP memo.
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President Donald Trump on Friday declassified a Republican-authored memo that claims to show the Justice Department and FBI inappropriately conducted surveillance on a member of the Trump presidential campaign.

FBI Director Chris Wray isn’t having any of it.

In a message to employees after the memo’s release, he portrayed it ― and the media’s reaction ― as little more than cheap talk, irrelevant to the far more important work the bureau does on a daily basis.

“The American people read the papers, and they hear lots of talk on cable TV and social media,” he wrote. “But they see and experience the actual work you do ― keeping communities safe and our nation secure ... and that will always matter more.

“Talk is cheap. The work you do is what will endure.”

Wray added: “Remember: keep calm and tackle hard.”

Read Wray’s full letter, below:

On Wednesday, while Trump was weighing whether to declassify the memo, the FBI issued an unusual public statement highlighting the “material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

Wray and others privately counseled the White House that releasing the memo would present a national security risk.

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