His choice is being celebrated by MAGA world, whereas it looks like the newest scare in Democrats’ nightmare.
President Donald Trump introduced Sunday evening that Kash Patel had tapped Dan Bongino to be second-in-command on the FBI, after the Senate confirmed Patel because the bureau’s new director final week.
Bongino, like many new leaders throughout the Trump Administration together with Patel, represents a radical departure from conference for his position. The FBI deputy director, which doesn’t require Senate affirmation, is historically an energetic agent with important operational experience and expertise—one thing Patel reportedly agreed to take care of earlier than choosing Bongino.
Bongino, a 50-year-old former Secret Service agent turned conservative-media commentator, is as an alternative most well-known for his outspoken help for Trump and his frequent spreading of misinformation, together with concerning the FBI.
Right here’s what to learn about Bongino.
A former police officer and Secret Service agent
Bongino began his profession as a cadet then officer with the New York Metropolis Police Division from 1995 to 1999, in accordance with a earlier marketing campaign web site. He joined the Secret Service in 1999 as a particular agent, beginning within the New York Subject Workplace and assigned with investigating federal crimes resembling “protecting intelligence, laptop crimes, financial institution fraud, bank card fraud and counterfeiting.” Bongino left the sphere workplace in 2002 to turn out to be an teacher on the Secret Service Coaching Academy in Beltsville, Md.
In 2006, Bongino joined the Presidential Protecting Division, serving in the course of the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Bongino then transferred to the Baltimore Subject Workplace in 2010, earlier than leaving in Could 2011 to run for workplace.
He has printed a number of books on his time with the company, together with Life Contained in the Bubble: Why a High-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All (2013) and The Struggle: A Secret Service Agent’s Inside Account of Safety Failings and the Political Machine (2016), drawing criticism for allegedly exaggerating his significance and proximity to energy and “hijacking the Secret Service model” to realize consideration.
Ran for Congress 3 times, unsuccessfully
In 2012, Bongino ran for the U.S. Senate in Maryland, successful the Republican main however in the end dropping by a landslide to Democratic incumbent Ben Cardin. He ran on the time on reducing taxes, rising jobs, and his “heartfelt want to shake up an unquestionably damaged political system and tradition.”
In 2014, Bongino ran towards Democratic incumbent John Delaney to symbolize Maryland’s sixth congressional district within the U.S. Home, however he narrowly misplaced.
Bongino then moved to Florida in 2015 for a “non-emergency household scenario,” elevating hypothesis that he would run for Congress once more, to symbolize the state’s 18th district. In 2016, he ran as an alternative within the GOP main for Florida’s nineteenth district, which was an open solid-red seat, however he completed third.
Survived Hodgkin’s lymphoma
In September 2020, Bongino introduced a 7-cm. progress had been present in his neck. The following month, he mentioned he needed to endure an operation to take away the expansion, and he later disclosed post-operation that it “appears to be like like lymphoma”—a sort of blood most cancers. On Oct. 16, Bongino mentioned he’d been recognized with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, although he added that “there’s a therapy plan.” In an interview with Megyn Kelly in 2024, Bongino mentioned he was “two years clear in remission.”
‘My complete life proper now’s about proudly owning the libs’
Bongino started a brand new profession in media after his unsuccessful run for Congress in 2015, beginning a podcast in his basement referred to as The Renegade Republican (since renamed The Dan Bongino Present). By 2016—with episodes resembling “Debunking Liberal Spin About Democrats and Interior Cities,” “How The Media Fooled America,” “The Reality About Commerce Wars” and “I’m Disgusted by Republicans for Hillary”—his viewers was reaching thousands and thousands.
Bongino’s reputation and brash type earned him a contract in 2018 with NRATV, the Nationwide Rifle Affiliation’s short-lived on-line video channel. “My complete life proper now’s about proudly owning the libs,” Bongino famously mentioned throughout a phase in October 2018.
Through the years, Trump took discover of Bongino, incessantly posting on social media about his feedback. “Did you see what Bongino mentioned?” Trump reportedly advised a confidant after seeing Bongino as a contributor on Fox Information in 2018, in accordance with the Every day Beast. “He’s so proper, he’s simply so proper about all of it. You must see it.”
In 2019, Bongino launched Bongino Report, an aggregator of right-wing media headlines supposed as a pro-Trump various to Drudge Report.
Bongino’s Fb web page grew to generate “extra month-to-month engagement than the pages of The New York Instances, The Washington Put up and CNN mixed,” in accordance with a 2020 New York Instances report.
In 2021, Bongino was tapped by discuss radio and podcast community Cumulus Media to take over the late Rush Limbaugh’s slot. That very same yr he additionally started internet hosting a Fox Information weekend program, Unfiltered With Dan Bongino, in addition to a five-part collection on cancel tradition referred to as Canceled within the USA on Fox Nation. (Bongino left the Fox Information community in April 2023, citing failed contract negotiations.) Bongino continues to host his podcast and radio present, although Trump mentioned in his submit saying Bongino’s FBI appointment that it’s “one thing he’s keen and ready to surrender in an effort to serve.”
Learn Extra: How Dan Bongino Went From Professional-Trump Podcaster to FBI Deputy Director
A misinformation ‘superspreader’
Bongino has been criticized for selling misinformation and conspiracy theories on a variety of topics.
A critic of vaccine mandates and masking (which he referred to as “ineffective”) in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bongino was completely banned from YouTube in January 2022 for violating its insurance policies towards pandemic-related misinformation, and Google pulled its advert companies from his web site. His podcast additionally went on hiatus in October 2021 after he publicly threatened to depart Cumulus Media over its vaccine mandate, regardless of being vaccinated himself. The present went again on air lower than two weeks later, nonetheless, with out Cumulus altering its coverage.
Maybe most famously, within the weeks after Joe Biden’s victory within the 2020 presidential election, Bongino promoted in dozens of social media posts and podcast clips the speculation that the election had been stolen from Trump. An evaluation by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Politico discovered that Bongino was among the many greatest high-profile right-wing figures to push the false narrative of voter fraud, and the New York Instances named him a high “misinformation ‘superspreader.’”
“Girls and gents, as I mentioned to you, there’s nothing to concede as a result of this race isn’t over,” Bongino addressed listeners in a Nov. 9, 2020, episode titled “Resist” discussing the election outcomes. “We aren’t going anyplace. We want that rally. We have to see the commander-in-chief, nonetheless the president of the US, and this race isn’t over. And even whether it is later, it’ll ship the message that Trump isn’t going away.” Ashli Babbitt, the 35-year-old lady who was fatally shot whereas storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, had retweeted Bongino 50 instances within the yr earlier than she died, in accordance with an evaluation by NPR.
Bongino has condemned the violence of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, although he additionally referred to as on Trump to pardon these arrested and charged with crimes associated to the riot.
Bongino has additionally been criticized for advancing different “conspiracy theories” associated to the 2016 and 2024 elections, the Mueller investigation, the Nord Stream pipelines, federal catastrophe response, and extra.
In a submit on Fb in October, Bongino claimed, “I’m batting 1000 with ‘conspiracy theories.’ You may take this one to the financial institution,” alongside a clip from his present through which he promised that Democrats “usually are not going to peacefully step apart in the event that they lose in November. There’s completely zero likelihood.”
Has referred to as the FBI ‘irredeemably corrupt’
The company that Bongino will quickly lead has lengthy been the topic of numerous his claims and criticisms.
Bongino has baselessly urged that the FBI performed and coated up a task within the pipe bombs positioned exterior the DNC and RNC headquarters in January 2021, and he’s questioned the integrity of the company’s investigations into the assassination makes an attempt on Trump in 2024.
In 2021, he accused members of the FBI (in addition to the CIA) of “unquestionably” making an attempt to “rig” the 2016 and 2020 elections. “A corrupted intelligence group, along side a corrupt media, will eat this nation like a most cancers from the within out,” Bongino mentioned throughout a podcast taping, in accordance with the New Yorker. “Because of this I’m actually hoping Donald Trump runs in 2024,” he mentioned. “He’s the very best candidate suited to wash home. As a result of if we don’t clear home the Republic is gone.”
Bongino repeated the concept “it’s time to wash home” on the FBI once more in 2022, throughout a monologue on Fox Information, through which he claimed that the company is “irredeemably corrupt” and has been “abusing its energy and eroding People’ belief for many years now.” Within the phase, Bongino outlined how he believed the FBI has a “lengthy historical past of failures” in its law-enforcement duties whereas it’s been busy pursuing politically-motivated investigations towards Trump.
The monologue got here after the FBI executed a search warrant at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, which Bongino referred to as “inexcusable” and referred to as for the firing of “everybody concerned.” (He additionally referred to as for the abolition of the FISA court docket in addition to reform of the FOIA course of.)
In one other Fox Information phase that very same month, Bongino mentioned of the FBI: “Then you definitely say, ‘Effectively, it’s only a few dangerous apples.’ Is it? … But it surely’s not one dangerous apple. It’s a rotten orchard.”
