Former Bridgewater executive floated as next FBI director

James B. Comey, a former prosecutor and general counsel of Bridgewater Associates L.P., will likely be nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed Robert S. Mueller III as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, according to reports.

Comey, a Connecticut resident and currently a professor at Columbia Law School, was offered the job after meeting with key White House officials earlier in May, the New York Times has reported.

The former Bridgewater executive was a federal prosecutor under President George W. Bush, serving as U.S. attorney for the southern district of New York and later as deputy attorney general from 2003 to 2005.

Over the course of his career as a prosecutor, Comey led the Justice Department’s investigation of a 1996 terrorist bombing at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American service members and oversaw numerous high-profile securities fraud cases, such as the prosecutions of several WorldCom executives and Martha Stewart.