Who is Dan Bongino, right-wing firebrand tapped to be FBI deputy director?
Dan Bongino has been appointed second-in-command of the FBI, President Donald Trump announced. The selection of Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and police officer turned right-wing media personality, marks an abrupt departure from those of the role’s predecessors, who were typically career FBI agents. Here’s what to know about Bongino and what his appointment means for the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
1. Who is Dan Bongino?
Before his rise to right-wing online stardom, Bongino was a New York Police Department officer for four years and a Secret Service agent for 12 years. According to a 2011 online biography, Bongino joined the Secret Service in 1999 as a special agent — first serving in its New York field office and then as an instructor at the Secret Service Training Academy in Beltsville, Maryland, before joining in 2006 the Presidential Protection Division, where he was on the protection details for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
He then ran unsuccessfully for political office as a Republican candidate at least three times — including twice in Maryland (in 2012 and 2014) and once in Florida (2016).
But it was his online media reach that elevated him into one of the most influential pro-Trump internet stars today. His namesake podcast, which was launched in 2015, has featured high-profile guests including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia), former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Trump. Bongino also frequently goes viral on Facebook and is the author of several books, including the best-selling “Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From It All.”
His on-air style is high-octane, pugnacious and relentlessly pro-Trump. “My entire life right now is owning the libs,” Bongino said in 2018. His clips regularly reach audiences of millions, with his podcast spiking in popularity during Trump’s first presidency and in the aftermath of the 2020 election, when he stoked dubious claims about the vote’s integrity. On Rumble, the YouTube rival popular with conservatives, his show has been streamed more than 300 million times, according to its own metrics.
After radio host Rush Limbaugh died in 2021, Bongino was selected to fill his coveted national radio slot from noon to 3 p.m. From 2021 to 2023, he hosted a program on Fox News. After the 2020 election, he made unsubstantiated claims that the FBI rigged the vote in Joe Biden’s favor.
2. What does the FBI deputy director do?
The FBI is responsible for protecting the United States from international and domestic terrorist attacks and espionage by hostile states, as well as for rooting out public corruption and the most serious white-collar, violent and organized crimes. It is also the primary federal agency responsible for investigating potential violations of federal civil rights statutes. It has far-reaching surveillance powers and access to sensitive intelligence.
The deputy director answers to the director, serving as the agency’s second-in-command responsible for day-to-day law enforcement operations and all of the FBI’s domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities.
The deputy director is appointed by the FBI director and not the president and, unlike the director, does not require Senate confirmation. Trump said that Kash Patel, who was narrowly confirmed as FBI director last week, appointed Bongino to the role.
The agency, which is headquartered in D.C., operates 55 field offices and 350 satellite offices across the country, as well as over 60 offices abroad. According to the FBI website, it employs about 38,000 people and has an annual budget exceeding $10 billion.
Bongino’s appointment makes him the second high-ranking Trump ally to be installed at the top of the agency, following Patel, and comes as Trump and his allies vow to remake the FBI. Patel has previously described the agency as a “tool of surveillance and suppression” and promised to dramatically curtail its power and deliver “accountability within the FBI.”
A Monday statement from Bongino’s X account said he accepted the role “as part of a broader effort to restore public trust and reinforce the integrity of” the FBI. “I’m here to ensure that America’s law enforcement institutions uphold the values and integrity they were built upon,” Bongino said.
3. What is Dan Bongino’s relationship with Trump?
In his broadcasts, Bongino has fiercely defended Trump and his agenda, adopted pro-MAGA storylines and railed against the president’s critics.
In 2021, he described himself as a “staunch ally to President Trump from the beginning, even when others sold him out.” In an interview with The Washington Post that year, he said that his relationship with Trump was not just political but also personal: As he was preparing for surgery following a cancer diagnosis, Bongino said, Trump called him and asked: “Is there anything we can do for you?”
Like Trump, Bongino has cast doubt on the integrity of the 2020 election, which Biden won. According to the New Yorker magazine, Bongino has publicly accused the FBI and CIA of trying to “rig” the election. “They hid information about Joe Biden and his corrupt son,” he said in a podcast episode, according to the New Yorker.
He has also suggested making changes to the FBI. In an episode of his show, released on Friday, Bongino suggested that “bad things” had happened at the FBI for the past eight years, hailing Patel’s confirmation and deriding Democratic senators who urged their Republican colleagues to block his nomination. “He is there for one reason: to clean this place up,” Bongino said.
In the run-up to the 2024 election, Bongino again amplified unfounded assertions, including that the vote would be rigged or stolen. “Do not let them fleece this thing again,” Bongino said in a May episode. “Your concerns about them stealing an election are valid.”
In 2022, he was permanently banned by YouTube for repeatedly breaking its rules on posting coronavirus misinformation by attempting to upload a video saying that masks were useless.
