Could former New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte be the next FBI director?
It's not totally out of the question.
So far, most of the speculative online lists of successors to James Comey haven't included Ayotte's name, but she was brought up as a possibility on Fox News and several other TV news outlets on Wednesday morning.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a long-time ally of Ayotte, told Fox News that he thinks she would be an "excellent choice." But he quickly added that "there are a lot of good people."
Ayotte does have a law enforcement background, having served as New Hampshire's attorney general before joining the U.S. Senate. She has had a complicated relationship with Trump, first backing him and then backing away from him during her re-election campaign last year. But she worked closely with him to help usher Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch through the Senate confirmation process.
She served as a visiting fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs this spring.
So far, social media reaction to the idea of Ayotte as FBI director has been mixed:
