Wednesday, December 16th, 2020
Casper confirmed as FBI director
The Senate has easily confirmed Michael Casper to be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), taking over from outgoing director Marcus Blakemore.
Casper was confirmed by an 89-1 vote, after the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously in favor of his nomination.
President Sam Seaborn chose Casper, a former FBI agent and longtime deputy director, to take over the nation's top law enforcement agency as the expiration of Blakemore's non-renewable ten-year term in February 2021 neared. Casper headed the FBI task force that located and rescued Zoey Bartlet when she was abducted in May 2003, and was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011 by Glen Allen Walken, Seaborn's predecessor. In 2005, he was promoted to head of field operations, and in 2011 was named deputy director of the FBI under Blakemore.
The president nominated Casper in October with a view that Casper could be quickly confirmed by the new Congress in January, according to sources familiar with the president's thinking. However, Casper's distinguished service record led to his nomination moving through the Judiciary Committee much faster than anticipated, allowing the vote to take place during the current lame duck session.
Casper, who joined the FBI in 1987, pledged to uphold the bureau's mission of providing "effective, impartial enforcement of the laws of this country" if confirmed.
While it was unsaid, Casper's statements were a clear reference to criticisms of Blakemore by Democrats as well as some Republicans. Blakemore, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2010 before dropping out due to an assassination attempt, has drawn concern for what critics say were politically-motivated decisions, including seizing computers in from offices of Senator Andrew Thorn (D-NY) during an investigation of the Emerald Capital Management, a subsidiary of his family's Thorn Group, and the arrest of former congresswoman Andi Wyatt (D-MD) over possible new information in the 2006 Patriot space shuttle leak scandal. Thorn himself was never considered a suspect, and after Wyatt's arrest drew bipartisan criticism, she was released and the charges against her dropped. Additionally, Blakemore publicly retracted his 2012 endorsement of Republican nominee Kurt Haden in the US Senate race for his home state of Michigan after criticism and was fined by the Office of Special Counsel for violating the Hatch Act, a 1939 law prohibiting federal civil service employees (except for the president and vice president) from engaging in some forms of political activity.
According to the White House, Director Blakemore offered his resignation upon learning of Casper's confirmation, which the president accepted. Casper will be sworn in as the nation's seventh FBI director tomorrow afternoon.
