Attorney General Jeff Sessions spent Saturday interviewing at least seven candidates to be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, including Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas), according to people familiar with the meetings.
Among the others getting sit-downs were Andrew McCabe, the acting FBI director, and FBI agent Adam Lee, the chief of the bureau’s Richmond, Va., office. As of Friday, Mr. Lee and Mr. McCabe, who is officially the bureau’s deputy director, were among the leading contenders to be the agency’s interim head until a permanent replacement can be confirmed by the U.S. Senate, according to two people familiar with the process.
Alice Fisher, a lawyer who served as a top Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, also interviewed Saturday. Others slated for meetings throughout the day were U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, a former federal and state prosecutor who, as a federal judge in 2010, ruled that a key provision of the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional; Frances Townsend, a top national security adviser to Mr. Bush who held senior positions in the Justice Department in the Clinton administration; and Michael Garcia, a New York state judge who was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan in the George W. Bush administration.
The interview list suggests the agency is casting a relatively wide net to replace former Director James Comey, who was fired by President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
Mr. Cornyn, a senior Republican lawmaker, has never worked at the Justice Department, though he served as attorney general in Texas and as a state judge. He sits on the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees, which have primary oversight roles over the FBI. He is also close to Mr. Sessions.
Mr. Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and other Justice Department officials participated in the interviews, according to the people familiar with the process. Justice Department and Trump administration officials said Mr. Sessions is working quickly to help find a replacement for Mr. Comey.
Mr. Trump, speaking aboard Air Force One en route to deliver a commencement address Saturday, told reporters that he expects to name a new director soon, possibly before the president departs Friday on his first foreign trip.
“I think the process is going to go quickly,” Mr. Trump said. “Almost all of them are very well known. They’ve been vetted over their lifetime, essentially.”
The interviews cap a tumultuous week, with the White House offering shifting explanations for Mr. Comey’s firing, and lawmakers of both parties questioning whether the dismissal was related to the FBI’s probe of Trump associates’ possible ties with Russia. Mr. Comey had been spearheading the investigation.
Russia has denied interfering in the election, and Mr. Trump and his staff have dismissed allegations that members of his campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome.
—Eli Stokols contributed to this article.
SOURCE: WSJ