Dan Bongino, the previous Secret Service agent turned Fox Information host and conservative podcast persona, would be the subsequent deputy director of the FBI — a selection that’s drawing criticism from Democrats as one other one in every of President Donald Trump’s allies strikes right into a management place.
Trump named Dan Bongino, a 2020 election denier, as deputy FBI director on Sunday to serve underneath newly confirmed FBI Director Kash Patel. Bongino, who left Fox Information in 2023, hosts the favored right-wing and pro-Trump podcast referred to as “The Dan Bongino Present,” which ranks amongst Apple’s prime 10 information podcasts.
On Monday morning, a really emotional Bongino instructed his present’s listeners that he was sitting at house watching TV when Trump referred to as him to let him know he was going to nominate him because the deputy director of the FBI. Bongino instructed listeners that he wished the deputy FBI director job.
Host Dan Bongino as US Open winner Gary Woodland visits “FOX & Mates” at Fox Information Channel Studios on June 18, 2019 in New York Metropolis. (Photograph by Roy Rochlin/Getty Photographs)
Roy Rochlin/Getty Photographs
“I acquired a name from the president, and he could not have been nicer, and clearly, preserve the contents of it between us, however I feel you get the gist about what it was about and I type of broke down a bit,” he mentioned. “That is now actual.”
Sometimes, the place of FBI’s deputy director is held by a profession agent — one thing Bongino will not be. The FBI’s deputy director is accountable for the day-to-day operations and operating the company. The place doesn’t require Senate affirmation.
Democrats have expressed outrage on the decide of Bongino as a pacesetter within the company, involved that Trump may use his allies main the company to go after his adversaries.
“Trump installs one other loyalist who will not say no to any immoral or unethical act,” Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff wrote of Bongino on X, including that his appointment degrades regulation enforcement companies and public security.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy wrote on X that “Trump has chosen grifters to guide the FBI.”
“Kash Patel sells ‘Ok$SH’ branded merch, vaccine reversal drugs. Dan Bongino’s complete present is telling listeners the world is ending in order that they purchase the handfuls of survivalist merchandise he sells,” Murphy wrote on X.
Bongino defended his appointment and mentioned the job because the FBI’s deputy director is “unquestionably nonpartisan.”
“I will ask you a easy query, have you ever seen what I did earlier than I got here right here,” Bongino mentioned on his podcast. “I am dedicated to service. Folks play completely different roles of their lives: Persons are dads, persons are soccer coaches. Persons are cops and army officers and military-enlisted individuals. Persons are carpenters, persons are plumbers. We play completely different roles in our life, and every one requires a special talent set.”
Kash Patel speaks after being sworn in as FBI director by U.S. Lawyer Common Pam Bondi within the Indian Treaty Room within the Eisenhower Government Workplace Constructing on the White Home campus in Washington, Feb. 21, 2025.
Leah Millis/Reuters
Bongino joins an company — like many others — present process modifications underneath the Trump administration. In a message to the FBI workforce final week, Patel introduced his intention to “scale back the footprint” of the FBI in “the Nationwide Capital Area,” together with by “reallocating personnel to the sector places of work and Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville [Alabama].” One supply instructed ABC Information this might embrace as many as 1,500 brokers and others from Washington being relocated.
The FBI, Bongino mentioned, belongs to the American individuals and can work to revive belief within the company. Bongino has mentioned the FBI is “misplaced, damaged” and “irredeemably corrupt,” when speaking in regards to the raid on Trump’s Palm Seashore house in 2022.
“Each single DNA cell in my physique goes to be devoted in the direction of retaining this homeland protected, it doesn’t matter what, it doesn’t matter what, that is my job,” he mentioned. “We’ll reestablish religion on this establishment, the nice individuals which might be doing their job, hitting the streets, creating sources. We’ll have your again. We’re going to reestablish religion on this establishment.”
The son of a plumber and a grocery store worker, Bongino grew up in Queens, New York, and began his profession as a New York Police Division officer within the Nineteen Nineties.
Bongino mentioned in his 2013 guide, “Life Contained in the Bubble,” that becoming a member of regulation enforcement was a “dream of his” and he devoted himself to his beat.
After leaving the NYPD, Bongino joined the Secret Service the place he rose to the ranks and joined former President Barack Obama’s safety element.
He mentioned he was compelled to run for Congress in Maryland in 2014 after leaving the service due to “the fog of scandals within the Obama administration,” he instructed ABC Information in 2013.
Bongino claimed that he overheard a collection of secret negotiations across the Reasonably priced Care Act throughout Obama’s first time period, which drove him to depart the service and enter politics.
That marketing campaign was unsuccessful, but it surely allowed Bongino to develop a platform to talk on conservative points.
Bongino has been an outspoken supporter of Trump, and instructed Fox Information in 2017 that the Trump-Russia collusion investigation into the 2016 presidential marketing campaign was a “complete rip-off.”
He additionally questioned the outcomes of the 2020 election and claimed there have been “anomalies” with the voting totals. Regardless of the quite a few false allegations of fraud within the 2020 election, there was no proof to again them up.
After Trump was shot throughout the 2024 marketing campaign, Bongino was important of the company he now helps lead.
“They completely, resolutely, 100% failed,” he mentioned of the Secret Service on Fox Information in July. He additionally referred to as for the firing of then-Deputy Director Ron Rowe along with the then-Director Christopher Wray.
