On Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel tapped as his deputy director Dan Bongino — a bombastic podcast host who has never worked at the FBI and has spent years pushing conspiracy theories about the bureau and the “deep state” he says has infiltrated the federal government. His hiring further intensifies the mistrust that many agents already had for Patel and the Trump administration, the Washington Post reports, citing sources who condition of anonymity to protect themselves and the agents from retribution. Bongino has spent the past decade as a popular conservative pundit, slamming the law enforcement agency he will now help lead as corrupt and unfixable.
Bongino has repeatedly called for the FBI agents assigned to conduct the court-authorized search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Beach, Florida, for missing classified documents to be fired. “Fire every single person involved in political targeting of Donald Trump and anyone they don’t like, everyone, personnel or policy,” Bongino said on his podcast shortly after the August 2022 raid. “It’s a fact. Fire everyone. It’s the only way. The evidence of a corrupted FBI is everywhere.” “The hope was he was going to surround himself with advisers that would allow Kash to get in there and focus on the critical mission of the FBI and the organizational needs of its people,” said Christopher O’Leary, a former senior executive in the FBI’s counterterrorism division who retired in 2023. “Choosing a deputy director who has no qualifications other than he is a fiercely loyal defender of President Trump says to me that they’re not looking to do that.”