Dan Bongino, a former conservative podcaster who became the No. 2 official at the FBI under the Trump administration, announced Wednesday that he is leaving the bureau next month.
“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,” he wrote in a post on X.
Trump appeared to confirm Bongino’s departure earlier Wednesday when asked by a reporter about Bongino’s future as deputy director at the bureau.
“Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump said.
The president tapped Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer, for the post in February.
NBC News previously reported that Bongino considered resigning in July after the FBI and Justice Department issued a joint memo saying they had completed an “exhaustive” review of investigative files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and that no other people would be charged in the case and the agencies would not be releasing any more information.
Sources told NBC News at the time that Bongino got into a heated argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi after the release of the memo, which had sparked outrage from some Trump supporters.
Before joining the administration, Bongino hosted a podcast where he alleged there had been a massive coverup involving the Epstein files.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pushed back on reports at the time that Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel had been upset about the memo, writing in a post on X, “All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions stated in the memo. The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.”
Bongino did not return to work for at least one day after the argument with Bondi, but ultimately stayed.
The White House announced in August that Andrew Bailey, then the Missouri attorney general, was being brought in as “co-deputy director” of the FBI.
Earlier this month, Bondi credited Bongino for his work in helping to identify and bring charges against a suspect in the long-stalled investigation into pipe bombs that were found near Democratic National Committee headquarters and Republican National Committee headquarters on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, the day a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“This case languished. It sat there for four years, collecting dust. No one did anything to solve this and right when Kash Patel and Dan Bongino came in, Dan said to me, Dan said to all of us, ‘I’m going to solve this case,’” Bondi told “Fox & Friends.” “He put a new team on it” and they solved the case, she said, calling it “great police work.”
The suspect, Brian Cole Jr., has pleaded not guilty.
Bongino said on the day Cole was charged that he’d been determined to track down the person responsible.
“You’re not going to walk into our capital city, put down two explosive devices and walk off in the sunset,” Bongino said. “Not going to happen — we were going to track this person to the end of the Earth. There was no way he was getting away.”
In a 2024 episode of his podcast, Bongino had claimed that the pipe bomb was an “inside job” to stop Trump.
“This was a setup. I have zero doubt,” he said last year.
