To listen to Dan Bongino describe it, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is “the only most corrupt regulation enforcement establishment” in America and a “full-blown leftist political motion committee” dedicated to protecting up Democratic crimes and withholding the reality from the American folks.
“It’s time for an absolute housecleaning,” he stated in 2023.
Now Mr. Bongino — the longtime right-wing pundit, podcaster and vocal ally of President Trump — has been tapped to function the company’s new deputy director. His podcast and radio present will finish manufacturing on March 14.
The job, which doesn’t require Senate affirmation, has historically been crammed by a senior agent with huge operational expertise and a deep understanding of how the bureau’s numerous divisions work. The final two deputy administrators collectively had greater than 35 years of expertise earlier than they assumed the function. Mr. Bongino served as a police officer and a U.S. Secret Service agent years in the past, however has no expertise with the F.B.I.
Mr. Bongino’s exact plans for the company stay opaque, however on latest podcasts he has stated he would rid the company of politicization and deal with crimes like drug dealing — regardless of the bureau’s broad mandate to guard nationwide safety, examine crimes and root out corruption by public officials in any respect ranges.
Taken collectively, Mr. Bongino’s years of feedback on his radio present and podcast have painted a imaginative and prescient for “dramatic change” on the F.B.I., as he put it final week. These concepts largely align with criticisms put forth by his pal Kash Patel, who was just lately confirmed because the director of the company. A few of their concepts, nevertheless, would most likely require further funding.
The F.B.I. declined to remark, nevertheless it just lately rejected costs of “corruption” leveled by a Republican cupboard secretary, saying such claims are usually not “supported by any proof” and “undermine the women and men of the F.B.I.”
Responding throughout his radio present Wednesday to questions despatched by The New York Occasions, Mr. Bongino stated: “It’s my job to supply political beliefs.” He added: “Your political beliefs aren’t a prerequisite for a job like that, clearly. My regulation enforcement expertise was.”
Right here’s what Mr. Bongino has stated previously about his imaginative and prescient for the F.B.I.
Fireplace ‘everybody’
Mr. Bongino has incessantly centered on F.B.I. officers who, in his thoughts, confirmed disloyalty to Mr. Trump by pursuing investigations in opposition to him or his supporters.
“How can we repair this? We hearth everybody who stood by,” he stated in June 2023 after Mr. Trump was indicted in a categorised paperwork case. The costs included willfully retaining nationwide protection secrets and techniques in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and a conspiracy to hinder justice.
“We don’t simply hearth the individuals who did this. Everybody who stood by and did nothing whereas the Division of Justice and the F.B.I. have been ravaged, ravaged by corrupt crowds. Everybody will get fired. Everybody.”
Republicans and Mr. Trump’s allies have tried to downplay costs in opposition to Mr. Trump by claiming some investigations by the F.B.I. had been little greater than a “witch hunt” in opposition to him.
The indictment on mishandling paperwork centered on Mr. Trump’s storing categorised paperwork in a number of rooms at Mar-a-Lago, together with a bathe. The investigation was began by the F.B.I. in 2022 however was finally taken over by an unbiased particular counsel. The costs had been dismissed after Mr. Trump’s re-election, as a result of Justice Division coverage prohibits indicting and prosecuting a sitting president.
Restructure the F.B.I.
On previous exhibits, Mr. Bongino endorsed Mr. Patel’s options that the F.B.I. was bloated and that its brokers in Washington ought to be dispersed all through the nation to combat crime.
“The corruption must be instantly defunded,” he stated throughout a present in June 2023. “The F.B.I. ought to not exist because it’s constituted now. The mission ought to be divvied up. The cash ought to be divvied up amongst different companies that take the oath to their nation significantly.”
Mr. Patel has already began to make good on a few of these guarantees. He introduced in February plans to maneuver about 1,500 brokers and others from the Washington area to area workplaces and different amenities across the nation.
Expose the F.B.I.’s ‘cover-ups’
Mr. Bongino has claimed the F.B.I. is aware of the reality about numerous mysteries which have animated right-wing influencers for years.
Amongst them is the thriller surrounding two pipe bombs that had been planted outdoors the headquarters of each political events in Washington the day before Mr. Trump’s rally on Jan. 6, 2021. The bombs by no means exploded, and it stays a thriller who planted them, although the F.B.I. launched new particulars concerning the case in January, together with new surveillance video.
Mr. Bongino has stated the F.B.I. tried to cowl up the crime in what he referred to as the “greatest scandal in F.B.I. historical past.” Citing no proof, he has stated that F.B.I. officers know the id of the bomber and that they’re conserving it secret to guard Democrats or authorities insiders. Former F.B.I. officers who labored the case stated that was false.
He has stated the F.B.I.’s subsequent leaders must “get to the story on Day 1 and re-establish belief.”
“It’s completely crystal clear to me that this was an inside job,” he stated concerning the bombs throughout a broadcast in November. “I don’t essentially imply inside authorities. Could possibly be. However there’s zero doubt in my thoughts that this was not a MAGA person who planted that bomb. This was an anti-Trump lunatic, and the F.B.I. is aware of who it’s and they won’t inform you.”
Finish ‘politicized’ investigations …
Mr. Bongino has stated Trump supporters had been unfairly focused by the F.B.I. when it investigated crimes dedicated on Jan. 6.
“We’re not investigating unhealthy guys as a result of we’re losing F.B.I., H.S.I. and D.O.J. time investigating who? MAGA and Christian nationalists,” he stated in November 2023, referring to Homeland Security Investigations.
What actually occurred: The F.B.I. investigated folks based mostly on proof that they’d dedicated crimes resembling getting into the U.S. Capitol illegally, assaulting cops or participating in seditious conspiracy. In the course of the sentencings of a handful of defendants, federal prosecutors requested for what is named a terrorism enhancement.
Christopher A. Wray, who stepped down as F.B.I. director earlier than Mr. Trump took workplace, has described the assault, by which supporters of Mr. Trump ransacked the Capitol, leading to 5 deaths and scores of accidents to cops, as home terrorism. Mr. Wray was confirmed throughout Mr. Trump’s first administration.
On the identical time, Mr. Bongino has advised that the F.B.I. ought to deal with different violent offenses like drug dealing, though the F.B.I. is in command of investigating any violation of federal regulation.
“I really suppose the intelligence operate ought to be faraway from the F.B.I. utterly,” Mr. Bongino stated in November final yr. “They need to return to financial institution theft investigations, kidnapping, severe stuff.”
The F.B.I. has not deserted these pursuits. The company’s recent announcements embrace arrests associated to an assault by the Islamic State, a string of A.T.M. robberies in New York and cash laundering in St. Louis.
… and probably begin investigations in opposition to Democrats.
Mr. Bongino has claimed for years that progressive leaders, together with former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., have dedicated crimes, and has stated leaders on the F.B.I. ought to be investigated.
“When Kash Patel goes in there, I feel many of those folks concerned ought to be investigated,” he stated in January about his perception that the F.B.I. performed a job within the riot on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “If there have been crimes dedicated, prosecuted.”
In a report final yr, the Division of Justice discovered “no proof” that the F.B.I. had “undercover workers within the numerous protest crowds, or on the Capitol, on Jan. 6.”
Mr. Bongino has echoed Republican claims that the F.B.I. and the Division of Justice had been weaponized in opposition to conservatives and desires to show these companies on left-wing People — though the bureau has a protracted historical past of investigating Democrats. In a present that aired in January, Mr. Bongino advised they’d use the federal government to go after lawbreakers in a tit-for-tat response to what he claimed Democrats had completed.
“They weaponized the federal government to go after Trump for costs they fabricated,” he stated. “We’re going to use the federal government to go after folks we imagine legitimately broke the regulation.”
Mr. Bongino appeared to acknowledge considerations that he would politicize the F.B.I., responding on his podcast that doing so was the very last thing on his thoughts.
“We’re there for the other purpose,” he stated. “To verify none of that occurs.”
