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FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino will step down next month, he said Wednesday, ending a short and tumultuous tenure as the bureau’s second-in-command.
Bongino announced the move on social media hours after US President Donald Trump said he thought Bongino wanted to “get back on his show.” He hosted a prominent right-wing podcast before joining the FBI.
“Dan did a great job. I think he wants to get back on his show,” Trump told reporters.
Bongino, himself a former New York City police officer and member of the Secret Service, was an unusual choice for the FBI’s No. 2 position, which has historically been filled by agents who have worked their way up.
Bongino was made deputy over objections from the FBI Agents Association, a group representing 14,000 current agents in the main, and after assurances from FBI Director Kash Patel that he would install an agent for the job.
Bongino thanked Trump, Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi for the “opportunity to work on purpose,” in the X post.
Conspiracy theories developed
As a podcast host, Bongino promoted a number of conspiracy theories that came back to haunt him once he was put in office, with notable examples involving the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
A 30-year-old man has been arrested and charged with planting two bombs in Washington on the eve of the 2021 attack on the US Capitol, officials said Thursday. The suspect, Brian Cole Jr., was charged with using an explosive device and attempting to destroy an explosive device.
Bongino said the bombing of the Democratic and Republican national committee offices the night before the shooting was an FBI “inside job.” He recanted that after the FBI in December arrested a suspect in the five-year-old case, saying in an interview with Fox News afterward that he had been paid to express controversial opinions.
Bongino’s time at the FBI has been in the news since July, when the news about Epstein came to a head.
That month, the Justice Department and FBI leadership jointly released a memo that backtracked on a promise to release investigative files on Epstein and poured cold water on various conspiracy theories that Bongino had long promoted on his podcast.
The memo angered many Trump supporters who follow the Epstein conspiracy theory and rejected the DOJ’s findings that there was no incriminating “client list” that could be released and that Epstein committed suicide in his prison cell.
