President Donald Trump on Sunday announced the selection of conservative commentator and former Fox News host Dan Bongino to serve as deputy FBI director, filling a position typically held by a career FBI agent with an influential media personality who has called for mass firings at the bureau.
Bongino will lead the bureau alongside Kash Patel, who was narrowly confirmed as FBI director by the Senate last week.
“Dan Bongino, a man of incredible love and passion for our Country, has just been named the next DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE FBI, by the man who will be the best ever Director, Kash Patel,” Trump said in a social media post. “Working with our great new United States Attorney General, Pam Bondi, and Director Patel, Fairness, Justice, Law and Order will be brought back to America, and quickly.”
The position does not require Senate confirmation.
Bongino is a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer who mounted several unsuccessful bids for Congress before pivoting his focus to media commentary with the launch of his own website in 2019, podcast and radio show, filling a slot once held by Rush Limbaugh.
Bongino has never served in the FBI, breaking a longstanding tradition of the role of deputy director being occupied by a career agent of the bureau.
In his role as a leading pro-Trump podcaster, Bongino has advanced baseless theories about the FBI, including a claim earlier this year that the bureau lied when it announced it still had not identified a suspect in the placement of pipe bombs outside of the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee a day before the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
In January, the FBI released new video of an individual placing one of the bombs near the DNC as part of the bureau’s renewed effort to track down a suspect.
“If the video has been sitting in the FBI evidence locker for four years now, it’s almost like someone in the FBI knows the identity of this bomber and that Trump is going to find out,” Bongino said in a recent podcast episode. He called the bureau’s inability to provide a name or other identifying information for the suspect “the biggest scandal of our time.”
Bongino was among that Trump loyalists who perpetuated conspiracies regarding the 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for classified documents, suggesting the search was an attempt by President Joe Biden’s administration to assassinate the then-former president.
“EVERYONE involved in this DOJ/FBI abomination, from the management down to the agents, must be immediately terminated when the tyrants are thrown out of office,” Bongino said in a social media post at the time.
Bongino will be one of nearly two-dozen former Fox News personnel in Trump’s administration, a list that includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Trump similarly staffed his first administration with several of the network’s employees.
Two current FBI officials concerned with Bongino’s selection noted to NBC News that the deputy FBI director typically runs the bureau’s operations and oversees the special agents that lead its 55 field offices across the country.
Prior to Trump’s post announcing Bongino’s appointment, NBC News obtained a memo from the FBI Agents Association that appeared to suggest the conservative podcaster was not qualified for his new position. Without naming any specific person, the memo pushed for a deputy director who was part of the bureau.
“The FBI Deputy Director should continue to be an on-board, active Special Agent — as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons, including operational expertise and experience, as well as the trust of our Special Agent population,” the statement read in part.
Former Justice Department officials, including Attorney General William Barr, who served in Trump’s first administration, also expressed concerns over Patel’s lack of experience in the bureau.
Patel and Bongino’s leadership of the FBI will come at a time of significant turnover. The head of the Washington Field Office — which oversaw the sprawling Jan. 6 probe — was forced out, as were six of the FBI’s most senior executives and multiple heads of FBI field offices around the country.
Democrats have accused Patel of secretly orchestrating the firings of career civil servants at the bureau. In a social media post following the claim — detailed in a letter by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to the Justice Department Inspector General — Erika Knight, a spokesperson for Patel, did not directly address Durbin’s letter but decried what she described as a “false narrative.”
“Kash Patel is a highly qualified national security expert who has been fully transparent with the American people throughout this process and has demonstrated the integrity and leadership needed for this role,” she wrote. “The Senate should confirm him without delay.”
Trump said this month that he plans to “fire some” FBI personnel who worked on the Capitol riot cases amid concerns of mass layoffs at the bureau as part of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to drastically cut the size of the federal workforce.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
