Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino is stepping down quickly from the job after eight months marked by clashes together with his boss, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and fighting off the conspiracies he as soon as fueled.
President Donald Trump advised reporters Wednesday that he thought Bongino wished to return to his podcast. Soon after, Bongino posted on X that he’d go away his publish in January.
“I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January. I want to thank President Trump, AG Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose. Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you,” Bongino wrote. “God bless America, and all those who defend Her.”
Before the president’s comment Wednesday, Bongino was seen at a gingerbread home adorning contest at FBI headquarters.
“Oh, Dan, Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump advised reporters earlier at Joint Base Andrews, referring to Bongino’s radio present.
Inside the White House and FBI, it has lengthy been believed that Bongino would depart after a 12 months. In current days, Andrew Bailey, the co-deputy director, has taken over a few of the conferences that Bongino was anticipated to deal with.
Bongino has complained each publicly and privately in regards to the tedious nature of the job and the toll it took on his private life.
Some FBI officers believed Bongino would depart the company after the arrest of a suspect in the 2021 pipe bomb case earlier this month. Bongino took a number one position in the case, which he was fixated on earlier than becoming a member of the company, dedicating a lot of his reveals to conspiracy theories that claimed the planting of pipe bombs close to Republicans and Democratic Party headquarters on the eve of January 6, 2021, was an inside job.
But in the times after the fees have been introduced, Bongino advised officers he had not made up his thoughts and may keep by the beginning of the brand new 12 months. Some officers contained in the FBI have been shocked by the President’s announcement Thursday.
The FBI declined to touch upon Trump’s remark about Bongino.
A former Secret Service agent who as soon as protected President Barack Obama, Bongino got here to the job after a profitable podcasting profession the place he vocally supported Trump.
It was a pointy flip for a job that in current a long time has been held by a profession agent, not a partisan appointee. The previous profession — which Bongino had vowed to return to — ended up being a thorn in the deputy director’s aspect as he tried to reshape the company.
Earlier this 12 months, Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel expressed frustrations to prime Trump officers about how Bondi and the Justice Department dealt with the aborted launch of paperwork associated to intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Bongino took it a step additional and threatened to leave the agency after officers reneged on guarantees to launch the paperwork.
Like Patel, Bongino favored releasing extra paperwork. In a gathering with White House chief of workers Susie Wiles, Bongino implied that he couldn’t serve in the place as lengthy as Bondi was nonetheless main the division. He skipped work after the conflict, leaving his bosses guessing whether or not he would return.
A month after his threats, Patel introduced Bongino could be joined in the place of deputy director by Bailey, who was then Missouri’s Attorney General.
But Bongino continued in the company, typically touting the work of the FBI on social media regardless of a deluge of criticism from some on the suitable — together with former brokers — who lamented that Bongino wasn’t being forthright in regards to the Epstein information and, in current weeks, the investigation into the DC Pipe bomber.
Conspiracy theories, together with these across the Epstein information, nevertheless, have been perpetuated by Bongino himself earlier than becoming a member of the FBI. On his podcast in May 2024, Bongino lamented, “What the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?”
“What do Clinton, Obama officials, big money leftists, a former prime minister of Israel — why do they want to make this Jeffrey Epstein story go away so bad?” Bongino requested.
A 12 months later, Bongino advised Fox News host Sean Hannity throughout an interview that his views had advanced, and he acknowledged frustration on the backlash from right-wing media.
“I’m not paid for my opinions anymore,” he stated. “I work for the taxpayer. I’m paid (based) on evidence.”
The complications for Bongino wouldn’t cease there.
On his 51st birthday in early December, Bongino went again on Hannity’s program to tout an enormous win: Law enforcement officers arrested and charged a 30-year-old Virginia man with planting the 2 pipe bombs discovered exterior the Republican and Democratic nationwide committee workplaces in Washington, DC.
Bongino had causes to have a good time. The case had turned chilly after FBI brokers tried for years to observe down the one who had positioned the bombs — captured solely on grainy safety footage that day, donning a gray hoodie and medical masks.
It was a case Bongino promised to reignite the investigation with a dogged, no holds bars method. But the celebration was brief lived.
“You put a post on X right after this happened and you said there’s a massive cover-up,” Hannity stated throughout Bongino’s victory-lap interview, including that Bongino had said beforehand that the pipe bomber was both a “connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job.”
The deputy director repeated his reply from the summer time.
“I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” he stated. “That’s clear. And one day I will be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”