In early September 2024, federal prosecutors presented evidence of a striking and unexpected controversy. The Justice Department had apparently uncovered evidence of a Russia-backed media network funding and directing a scheme that sent millions of dollars to prominent right-wing commentators and podcast hosts.
As the scandal unfolded, far-right podcaster Dan Bongino used his own program to extend some advice to his ideological brethren: Those caught up in the mess, Bongino said, should not cooperate with the FBI.
Six months later, Donald Trump decided it’d be a good idea to put the far-right media personality in a key leadership post at the FBI. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump on Sunday announced the selection of conservative commentator and former Fox News host Dan Bongino to serve as deputy FBI director, filling a position typically held by a career FBI agent with an influential media personality who has called for mass firings at the bureau. Bongino will lead the bureau alongside Kash Patel, who was narrowly confirmed as FBI director by the Senate last week.
The deputy director position is effectively responsible for running the bureau’s day-to-day operations, as The New York Times reported, it is “a complex and grueling job that requires working closely with foreign partners and navigating sensitive investigations.”
For generations, the administrative position has gone to senior agents with extensive FBI experience. According to NBC News’ reporting, this trend was supposed to continue: Patel privately agreed — shortly before the president’s announcement — that the next FBI deputy director would be an active special agent with operational expertise and experience, as well as institutional knowledge and respect within the bureau.
It was against this backdrop that Trump instead chose a podcaster with literally no FBI experience for the job. The fact that Bongino worked as a Secret Service agent and NYPD officer is of interest, but it’s also not altogether relevant.
What’s more, this is not a Senate-confirmed position. The president wants an unqualified conservative media personality to help run the FBI’s operations, and so an unqualified conservative media personality will now help run the FBI’s operations.
Even by Trump standards, this is truly bonkers.
In fact, it’s genuinely challenging to know where to start. Do we emphasize how hilarious Trump’s recent focus on “meritocracy“ is in light of decisions like these? Do we focus on Bongino’s failed congressional campaigns, making this an extension of the ongoing “Team of Losers” thesis?
How about the president’s preoccupation with hiring officials with Fox News experience? (According to tallies from The New York Times and Media Matters, Trump has now chosen 20 former Fox hosts and contributors — and counting — to serve on his team.) Or maybe a few paragraphs about Trump vowing to “depoliticize” the FBI while installing someone who once said, “My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That’s it. The libs, because they have shown themselves … to be pure unadulterated evil”?
While each of these angles is relevant, more still, however, is the bigger picture: This is a step a president takes when he wants to tear down the FBI and turn it into something new and twisted.
Trump tapped an inexperienced and prolific conspiracy theorist to serve as the director of the FBI, at which point he tapped another inexperienced and prolific conspiracy theorist to serve as the deputy director of the FBI. Both men, of course, are also election deniers. As the aforementioned Times report added, “The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the bureau’s history. It is also all but certain to prompt concerns about how the men, who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics, will run an agency typically insulated from White House interference.” NBC News’ reporting also noted that Bongino has spent many hours specifically spouting “baseless falsehoods” about the bureau itself, leading current and former FBI feeling “appalled — and extremely concerned for the national security of the country.” I don’t doubt that there will still be an institution called the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but with Patel and Bongino at the helm, it will not be the FBI. Before 51 Senate Republicans voted to confirm Patel last week, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on the chamber’s floor, “If your plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the Department of Justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then Kash Patel is the perfect person to lead the FBI.” Bongino makes the same problem vastly worse.
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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