Right-wing commentator named FBI deputy director

Washington: Dan Bongino, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned right-wing pundit and podcaster, was to be the next deputy director of the FBI, US President Donald Trump said.

Trump, making the announcement on his social media site on Sunday night, said new FBI director Kash Patel had named Bongino to the No.2 post at the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency.

The role of deputy director does not require Senate confirmation, meaning two steadfast Trump loyalists will effectively be installed at the uppermost reaches of an agency known for its tradition of independence.

The choice of Dan Bongino, a conservative commentator in the US, is a radical and abrupt departure from past practice. Credit: The Washington Post

The announcement came about an hour after the FBI Agents Association told its members that Patel had privately acknowledged that the next deputy director should be an FBI agent, intensifying mistrust among the rank and file.

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

In the past, FBI directors have selected senior agents with extensive experience to essentially run the bureau’s operations, a complex and gruelling job that requires working closely with foreign partners and navigating sensitive investigations.

The choice of Bongino is a radical and abrupt departure from that practice that raises startling questions about how two people who have never served as FBI agents will oversee the vast surveillance and investigative powers of an agency of 38,000 people and a budget of about $US11 billion ($17 billion).

The combination of Patel and Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the history of a bureau typically insulated from White House interference. It will also ensure that the bureau will be run by men who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics.

“My entire life right now is about owning the libs,” Bongino said in 2018. He has also echoed a popular grievance among the far right denouncing the so-called deep state.

Bongino’s ascension comes at a time of enormous upheaval at the agency as the Department of Justice has pushed out some senior executives who, collectively, have decades of experience running the different divisions of the bureau.

FBI director Kash Patel (left) had acknowledged that the next deputy director should be an FBI agent.Credit: Kenny Holston/The New York Times

It is unclear what will happen to the interim leaders, Brian Driscoll and Robert C. Kissane, who served as the acting director and acting deputy director until Patel’s confirmation. Their initial refusal to accede to the DoJ’s demand for the names of bureau personnel who investigated the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, made them well-liked internally, willing, in the view of many inside the bureau, to stand up to what was perceived as political interference.

Many had hoped the two would remain in Washington to help Patel run the FBI.

In an internal newsletter distributed to agents before Trump’s announcement, the head of the association, Natalie Bara, said that in a meeting in January with Patel, she and the group’s vice president, Jen Morrow, urged that his lieutenant “be an onboard, active special agent, as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons”.

Patel, she said, agreed.

Patel had wanted Bongino as his deputy, a person familiar with the matter said, though it remained unclear whether Trump had also pushed for Bongino’s selection.

Bongino ran for elected office three times before gaining popularity as a right-wing commentator.

A former Fox News host, Bongino left the network in 2023. Notably, he hosted Trump on his show in 2021, at a time when the network – and much of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire – was trying to turn the page on the Trump era.

On Fox News in December 2021, Geraldo Rivera called the events of January 6 a riot “unleashed, incited and inspired” by Trump, leading Bongino to question his fealty.

“The backstabbing of the president you’re engaging in is really disgusting,” he said.

His tough-talking style catapulted him to stardom on radio and social media, where he often peddles rampant misinformation. That includes spreading the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen, falsely claiming that masks are ineffective at preventing the spread of the coronavirus and perpetuating labyrinthine and baseless conspiracy theories involving a plot by Democrats to spy on Trump’s 2016 campaign.

In an interview with The New Yorker, Pete Hegseth, then a fellow Fox News host and now US Defence Secretary, equated Bongino to a general who, like him, got “to serve in information warfare”.

The news elicited questions about how the bureau would retain its credibility with two men at the helm who have a history of spreading exaggerated and misleading information.

In an email to the FBI after he was confirmed, Patel said: “I will always have your backs, because you have the backs of the American people.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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