To hear Dan Bongino describe it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is “the single most corrupt law enforcement institution” in America and a “full-blown leftist political action committee” devoted to covering up Democratic crimes and withholding the truth from the American people.
“It is time for an absolute housecleaning,” he said in 2023.
Now Mr. Bongino — the longtime right-wing pundit, podcaster and vocal ally of President Trump — has been tapped to serve as the agency’s new deputy director. His podcast and radio show will end production on March 14.
The job, which does not require Senate confirmation, has traditionally been filled by a senior agent with vast operational experience and a deep understanding of how the bureau’s various divisions work. The last two deputy directors together had more than 35 years of experience before they assumed the role. Mr. Bongino served as a police officer and a U.S. Secret Service agent years ago, but has no experience with the F.B.I.
Mr. Bongino’s precise plans for the agency remain opaque, but on recent podcasts he has said he would rid the agency of politicization and focus on crimes like drug dealing — despite the bureau’s broad mandate to protect national security, investigate crimes and root out corruption by public officials at all levels.
Taken together, Mr. Bongino’s years of comments on his radio show and podcast have painted a vision for “dramatic change” at the F.B.I., as he put it last week. Those ideas largely align with criticisms put forth by his friend Kash Patel, who was recently confirmed as the director of the agency. Some of their ideas, however, would probably require additional funding.
The F.B.I. declined to comment, but it recently rejected charges of “corruption” leveled by a Republican cabinet secretary, saying such claims are not “supported by any evidence” and “undermine the men and women of the F.B.I.”
Responding during his radio show Wednesday to questions sent by The New York Times, Mr. Bongino said: “It’s my job to produce political opinions.” He added: “Your political opinions aren’t a prerequisite for a job like that, obviously. My law enforcement experience was.”
Here’s what Mr. Bongino has said in the past about his vision for the F.B.I.
Fire ‘everyone’
Mr. Bongino has frequently focused on F.B.I. officials who, in his mind, showed disloyalty to Mr. Trump by pursuing investigations against him or his supporters.
“How do we fix this? We fire everyone who stood by,” he said in June 2023 after Mr. Trump was indicted in a classified documents case. The charges included willfully retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to obstruct justice.
“We don’t just fire the people who did this. Everyone who stood by and did nothing while the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. have been ravaged, ravaged by corrupt crowds. Everyone gets fired. Everyone.”
Republicans and Mr. Trump’s allies have tried to downplay charges against Mr. Trump by claiming some investigations by the F.B.I. were little more than a “witch hunt” against him.
The indictment on mishandling documents centered on Mr. Trump’s storing classified documents in multiple rooms at Mar-a-Lago, including a shower. The investigation was started by the F.B.I. in 2022 but was ultimately taken over by an independent special counsel. The charges were dismissed after Mr. Trump’s re-election, because Justice Department policy prohibits indicting and prosecuting a sitting president.
Restructure the F.B.I.
On past shows, Mr. Bongino endorsed Mr. Patel’s suggestions that the F.B.I. was bloated and that its agents in Washington should be dispersed throughout the country to fight crime.
“The corruption needs to be immediately defunded,” he said during a show in June 2023. “The F.B.I. should no longer exist as it’s constituted now. The mission should be divvied up. The money should be divvied up amongst other agencies that take the oath to their country seriously.”
Mr. Patel has already started to make good on some of those promises. He announced in February plans to move about 1,500 agents and others from the Washington region to field offices and other facilities around the country.
Expose the F.B.I.’s ‘cover-ups’
Mr. Bongino has claimed the F.B.I. knows the truth about various mysteries that have animated right-wing influencers for years.
Among them is the mystery surrounding two pipe bombs that were planted outside the headquarters of both political parties in Washington the day before Mr. Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021. The bombs never exploded, and it remains a mystery who planted them, though the F.B.I. released new details about the case in January, including new surveillance video.
Mr. Bongino has said the F.B.I. tried to cover up the crime in what he called the “biggest scandal in F.B.I. history.” Citing no evidence, he has said that F.B.I. officials know the identity of the bomber and that they are keeping it secret to protect Democrats or government insiders. Former F.B.I. officials who worked the case said that was false.
He has said the F.B.I.’s next leaders need to “get to the story on Day 1 and re-establish trust.”
“It is absolutely crystal clear to me that this was an inside job,” he said about the bombs during a broadcast in November. “I don’t necessarily mean inside government. Could be. But there’s zero doubt in my mind that this was not a MAGA person that planted that bomb. This was an anti-Trump lunatic, and the F.B.I. knows who it is and they will not tell you.”
End ‘politicized’ investigations …
Mr. Bongino has said Trump supporters were unfairly targeted by the F.B.I. when it investigated crimes committed on Jan. 6.
“We’re not investigating bad guys because we’re wasting F.B.I., H.S.I. and D.O.J. time investigating who? MAGA and Christian nationalists,” he said in November 2023, referring to Homeland Security Investigations.
What really happened: The F.B.I. investigated people based on evidence that they had committed crimes such as entering the U.S. Capitol illegally, assaulting police officers or engaging in seditious conspiracy. During the sentencings of a handful of defendants, federal prosecutors asked for what is known as a terrorism enhancement.
Christopher A. Wray, who stepped down as F.B.I. director before Mr. Trump took office, has described the attack, in which supporters of Mr. Trump ransacked the Capitol, resulting in five deaths and scores of injuries to police officers, as domestic terrorism. Mr. Wray was confirmed during Mr. Trump’s first administration.
At the same time, Mr. Bongino has suggested that the F.B.I. should focus on other violent offenses like drug dealing, even though the F.B.I. is in charge of investigating any violation of federal law.
“I actually think the intelligence function should be removed from the F.B.I. completely,” Mr. Bongino said in November last year. “They should go back to bank robbery investigations, kidnapping, serious stuff.”
The F.B.I. has not abandoned those pursuits. The agency’s recent announcements include arrests related to an attack by the Islamic State, a string of A.T.M. robberies in New York and money laundering in St. Louis.
… and potentially start investigations against Democrats.
Mr. Bongino has claimed for years that progressive leaders, including former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., have committed crimes, and has said leaders at the F.B.I. should be investigated.
“When Kash Patel goes in there, I think many of these people involved should be investigated,” he said in January about his belief that the F.B.I. played a role in the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “If there were crimes committed, prosecuted.”
In a report last year, the Department of Justice found “no evidence” that the F.B.I. had “undercover employees in the various protest crowds, or at the Capitol, on Jan. 6.”
Mr. Bongino has echoed Republican claims that the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice were weaponized against conservatives and wants to turn those agencies on left-wing Americans — even though the bureau has a long history of investigating Democrats. In a show that aired in January, Mr. Bongino suggested they would use the government to go after lawbreakers in a tit-for-tat response to what he claimed Democrats had done.
“They weaponized the government to go after Trump for charges they fabricated,” he said. “We are going to use the government to go after people we believe legitimately broke the law.”
Mr. Bongino seemed to recognize concerns that he would politicize the F.B.I., responding on his podcast that doing so was the last thing on his mind.
“We’re there for the opposite reason,” he said. “To make sure none of that happens.”
