About a month ago, Donald Trump’s revenge tour arrived at the FBI’s headquarters, where the president fired senior bureau officials, including the assistant director in charge of the FBI Washington Field Office. Several days later, the president told the public that he intended to fire even more FBI personnel, accusing them without evidence of being “corrupt.”
It was an early reminder that the Republican is determined, not just to fundamentally change the bureau, but also to destabilize federal law enforcement.
And then things got worse. At the president’s behest, 51 Senate Republicans made Kash Patel, an unqualified conspiracy theorist and partisan operative, the director of the FBI. Over the weekend, Trump took matters to a new level by announcing that Dan Bongino — best known to the public as a far-right podcaster and Fox News commentator — would serve as the bureau’s deputy director, overseeing the FBI’s day-to-day operations, despite the fact that he’s never worked at the bureau.
NBC News reported that the developments have not been well received.
Current and former FBI officials expressed shock and dismay Monday over the news that President Donald Trump had selected a right-wing podcaster and ardent FBI critic to be the bureau’s deputy director, even as the man picked for the job said he was ready to put partisanship aside.
Christopher O’Leary, a former senior FBI official who retired in 2023, told NBC News, “This is beyond problematic. Any hope that Kash could be steered by having experienced leaders around him is out the window. We now have two conspiracy theorists and election deniers running our premier law enforcement and intelligence agency.”
A current FBI employee added, “I didn’t sleep, and I want to pack my desk today.”
The problem, of course, is not limited to the obvious fact that Bongino, who worked as a police officer and a Secret Service agent before becoming a media personality, is unqualified for the position. Similarly, the problem is also not limited to the fact that the Patel-Bongino leadership team represents the least experienced FBI leadership team in the history of American law enforcement.
Rather, what arguably matters most is Bongino’s actual record — which is littered with bizarre conspiracy theories, ugly partisanship, ridiculous claims, and pointed attacks directed at, among others, the bureau that he’ll now help lead. NBC News also reported:
A survey of Bongino’s podcast transcripts by NBC News from 2017 to 2025 found that he made the FBI a regular target on his show, routinely claiming that the bureau colluded with the so-called deep state, an alleged shadowy network of entrenched federal and military operatives. Those themes figured heavily on “The Dan Bongino Show,” a syndicated radio show and daily podcast that is among the most popular in the U.S.
The podcaster has condemned the FBI as “irredeemably corrupt“ and called for mass firings within the bureau. Bongino, an unabashed election denier, is even on record falsely accusing the FBI of playing a role in instigating the Jan. 6 attack. Just as notably, he’s been equally disdainful of Americans who dare to disagree him. “My entire life right now is about owning the libs, Bongino has said. “That’s it. The libs, because they have shown themselves … to be pure unadulterated evil.” The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg added in her latest column, “When a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts last year, the conservative podcaster Dan Bongino made a veiled threat on social media. ‘The irony about this for the scumbag commie libs, is that the cold civil war they’re pushing for will end really badly for them,’ he wrote. Liberals, said Bongino, had been playing at revolution, and would now get a taste of the real thing. ‘They’re not ready for what comes next.’” What comes next is Bongino taking the reins at the FBI. By any fair measure, it’s not “scumbag commie libs” who aren’t ready.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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