A far-right conspiracy theorist and podcaster who called the FBI “irredeemably corrupt” will now run the day-to-day operations of the agency he despises. Dan Bongino, who spent just two years as a New York police officer and 12 as Secret Service agent and has never led large teams or worked at the FBI, will now have to figure out how to run the agency of 38,000 employees.
Bongino’s lack of qualifications is the least of my concerns. We’ve become almost numb to the reality that President Donald Trump has named Cabinet officials and sub-Cabinet leaders, including new FBI Director Kash Patel, who aren’t qualified to lead. I’m more concerned with Bongino’s disturbing statements, his political love affair with Trump and his penchant for promoting conspiracy theories that could turn the FBI into a dangerous and Machiavellian machine.
While the director sets the course for the FBI, his deputy steers the ship.
Based on my 25 years at the FBI, including serving as an assistant director, I’d assert that the deputy director position at FBI is more essential than the director role. While the director sets the course for the FBI, the deputy steers the ship. The daily operations — particularly the highest-profile and most serious criminal and national security investigations — are briefed every morning to the deputy and often throughout the day and after hours.
The deputy must sign off on requests to use the most sensitive techniques within the FBI’s authorities — such as electronic surveillance and complex undercover operations. The deputy briefs the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and the White house and regularly interacts with the key oversight committees in Congress. The deputy director also spends a great deal of time developing relationships with other federal partner agencies and importantly, with our international allies in law enforcement and intelligence. Yet Senate confirmation isn’t required for this key position.
Is Bongino capable of these tasks? Maybe. Is he the right guy for it? No.
First, to be an effective deputy director, Bongino must win the trust of the employees in the 55 field offices and in the over 100 FBI locations abroad covering 180 nations. Sadly, that trust was already undermined; his boss, Patel, broke his promise to the FBI Agents Association to appoint a career agent to the deputy position. Bongino’s hiring marks the first time in the history of the bureau that a career FBI agent won’t serve as deputy director. It would be an understatement to say agents aren’t happy that someone with no knowledge of the bureau will be in that position.
Second, the FBI’s mission includes gathering facts and evidence to support criminal prosecutions and collecting provably accurate intelligence that enables the president and Congress to make critical national security decisions. Bongino has shown that he cares little about facts and evidence as he has spread rumors and conspiracy theories. In 2020, Avaaz, a global human rights group, the Elections Integrity Partnership and The New York Times listed him near the top of their list of “misinformation super-spreaders” because he helped spread the lie that the 2020 election was rigged against Trump. Also in 2022, YouTube permanently banned Bongino. The platform suspended him a week for claiming that masks were totally useless against Covid-19. It banned him permanently when he tried to post the same content from a different channel.
Bongino’s own statements and demeanor reflect a man hell-bent on revenge against those who disagree with his political stances.
Bongino didn’t respond to questions from the Times regarding the “super-spreaders” list, and he appears not to have responded to any media outlets asking about the YouTube ban. A social media account associated with one of his shows shared the platform’s announcement of his ban on Twitter and wrote, “Good riddance to YouTube.”
NBC News reported data analytics that showed Bongino incessantly repeated conspiracy theories about the agency he is about to help run. The report states that over a five-year period Bongino made 21,000 mentions of “FBI or deep state,” maxing out in June 2023, when Trump was federally indicted by special counsel Jack Smith. Among Bongino’s conspiracy theories is the claim that the FBI knows but isn’t telling us who planted the bombs near the Democratic and Republican national committees’ headquarters before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Third, Bongino’s own statements and demeanor reflect a man hell-bent on revenge against those who disagree with his political stances. That’s not the neutral, objective leader the FBI demands in a time when Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi are touted as people who will restore integrity and transparency to the FBI and the Justice Department.
On his podcast Monday, Bongino tried to allay the valid concerns that he can’t credibly serve in a role that requires total nonpartisan neutrality. He failed.
“I get it, if you are a political opponent of mine that has been involved with proudly celebrating a weaponized justice system ... you don’t understand how a guy like me who discusses partisan content in an opinion show” can do an “unquestionably nonpartisan job,” he said. “I’m going to ask you a simple question: ‘Have you seen what I did before I came here?’”
He continued: “I’m committed to service. People play different roles in their lives. People are dads; people are soccer coaches. People are cops and military officers and military enlisted people. People are carpenters; people are plumbers. We play different roles in our life, and each one requires a different skill set.”
Is Bongino suggesting that the far-right conspiracy theorist who ranted that power is all that matters, who says that his mission was to “own the libs” he described as “pure unadulterated evil” and who says that if you pick a fight with him he “will never let it go” was just an act he can discard overnight?
Bongino sounds confused. Different skill sets that we use in different roles in our lives are one thing. But the capacity to remain objective and neutral isn’t a skill set a person can turn on and off. And there’s no reason for us to believe Bongino can become objective and neutral or that he wants to be.
