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The FBI will officially be headed by two men with no experience in the bureau, and a lot of blind loyalty towards President Donald Trump.
On Sunday, the president announced that former Secret Service agent and right-wing podcaster Dan Bongino has been selected to serve as deputy and second in command to recently confirmed FBI director Kash Patel.
According to a Monday report from The New York Times, the decision came shortly after the FBI Agents Association told its members that Patel said his deputy should be a bureau agent — given his own lack of experience within the law enforcement agency. According to a memo obtained by The Bulwark, FBI Agents Association President Natalie Bara met with Patel
in January, when the then-nominee agreed that if appointed, the position of deputy director would be filled by “an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years.” Somewhere between convincing people to support his bid for the job and actually getting, Patel has conveniently changed his mind.
Unlike Patel, Bongino’s role as Deputy Director does not require Senate confirmation — all the better for the former NRA TV host, who has almost as many liabilities as his new boss.
Bongino began his career in law enforcement with a four-year stint in the New York Police Department, which he left to join the Secret Service as a protective detail to former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. In 2011, Bongino left the agency to launch a failed bid for the Senate. Throughout his campaign, Bongino leaned heavily into his experience in the White House, claiming to have had access to high-level discussions that made him mistrust the Obama administration. Fellow agents denounced Bongino’s claims, telling ABC News at the time that Bongino was trying to “draw attention to himself and he’s hijacking the Secret Service brand.”
Bongino never made it into Congress — sinking in two campaigns for the House after his flop Senate run — but the Trump era propelled him to notoriety as a right-wing commentator and radio host. In 2018, he claimed he’d dedicated his “entire life right now” to “owning the libs.” His media career has included stints at the now-defunct NRATV, Fox News, and as a replacement host on The Rush Limbaugh Show following Limbaugh’s death. All the while (and like many in his profession) Bongino raked in cash hawking dubious supplements and miracle remedies to his audience.
As a political commentator, Bongino rarely broke step with the cyclical hysterias and conspiracy mongering that define right-wing media. He was a prominent peddler of 2020 election conspiracies (and a staunch defender of the Jan. 6 rioters), opponent of vaccine mandates, promoter of the great replacement conspiracy theory, and even enjoyed dabbling in QAnon.
Bongino frequently leveraged his experience in law enforcement in conservative cable news discussions to justify police brutality and the use of excessive force by law enforcement officers. On Fox News, Bongino defended the killings by police of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, and in 2020 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee urged Congress to reject efforts to reform police departments and create more accountability for law enforcement officers.
During the first weeks of Trump’s second administration, Bongino has hyped up the president’s power grab and revenge tour against his political opponents. Earlier this month, the radio host urged Trump to ignore a court order blocking the administration’s attempt to place a widespread freeze on federal funding.
“Folks, threatening with arrest. Who’s going to arrest him? The marshals? You guys know who the U.S. Marshals work for? Department of Justice. That is under the — oh yeah — the executive branch. Donald Trump’s going to order his own arrest? This is ridiculous,” Bongino said. “We need to set up a courtroom. Donald Trump can sit there. He can even wear, like, the wigs they wear in the UK court system, and he can just start making judicial decisions. They’ll let them — ‘He can’t do that, bro.’ The judge can’t do it either. What’s the difference? If the judge is the executive, why can’t the executive be the judge?”
In January, Bongino encouraged Trump to launch an investigation into former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who headed the two federal criminal cases against the president in the interim between his terms in office. Both cases were dissolved upon Trump’s election.
It’s clear that the throughline between Patel and Bongino is not a wealth of experience qualifying them to manage one of the most powerful law enforcement agencies on the planet, but a devoted loyalty to the sitting president and a predilection for revenge fantasies. Patel has been open in the past about his desire to see the Trump administration prosecute the president’s perceived enemies. His stewardship of the FBI could give him a powerful tool to do so. In selecting Bongino, the schism between agents at the bureau and the priorities of the Trump administration couldn’t be more clear.
