Mike Rogers leading FBI is 'not happening', Trump adviser says

WASHINGTON ― A top adviser to Donald Trump said Friday the president-elect told him Michigan's Mike Rogers won't be the next director of the FBI, after Rogers had been lobbying for the post in recent days.

"Just spoke to President Trump regarding Mike Rogers going to the FBI," Trump aide Dan Scavino Jr. posted on X Friday morning.

"It’s not happening — In his own words, 'I have never even given it a thought.' Not happening."

Scavino, a senior adviser to Trump's presidential campaign, is expected to return to the White House next year as an assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff.

Rogers, a former FBI agent and seven-term congressman from White Lake Township, earlier this month narrowly lost a U.S. Senate race to Democratic U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Holly by about 20,200 votes or less than half a percentage point.

Rogers had endorsed Trump, praised his policy agenda and campaigned with him for the last six months across Michigan. Rogers reportedly had made a trip to Mar-A-Lago last week to meet with Trump's transition team, which did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

"President-elect Trump is once again assembling a fantastic administration to help the American people and Make America Great Again," Rogers spokesman Chris Gustafson said Friday after Scavino's post.

"We will not be commenting on the President-elect’s decisions at this time.”

Trump ally Kash Patel, who worked in the former president's Justice Department and as chief of staff at the Pentagon during his first term, has also been under consideration for the FBI chief job, according to published reports.

Patel had endorsed Rogers' bid for Senate in April, calling him "a veteran who will hold the FBI and DOJ accountable and stand up to the growing threat of Communist China."

Rogers went on Fox News early Friday morning and discussed why he'd be good for the FBI job, while declining to discuss the Trump transition team's deliberations.

"The Bureau has lost confidence of the American people. This is a tragedy," Rogers said. "It should not be engaged in politics, and the culture of the FBI on the seventh floor needs to be changed, and it has to have a kind of a reckoning."

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