Dan Bongino, the conservative Podcasto appointed deputy director of the FBI, has spent the last seven years criticizing the agency that will now help manage, promoting conspiracy theories about the corrupt leadership of the FBI and the agents who were out to obtain President Donald Trump
A survey of the Podcasts transcripts of Bongino de NBC News from 2017 to 2025 found that it made the FBI a regular objective in its program, routinely affirming that the office colluded with the so -called deep state, an alleged dark network of federal and military operations entrenched . . Those issues are a lot in “The Dan Bongino Show”, a union radio program and a daily podcast that is among the most popular in the United States.
Along the way, Bongino has gone from being a relatively unknown conservative expert to one of the most followed and recognizable pro-trump voices in all media, which leads to a audience of millions on several platforms.
“The FBI has failed total and completely in the United States,” Bongino said in a June 2024 episode of his podcast, a typical feeling of his attacks against the office. “It kills me having to tell you that you can’t trust these people, you can’t.”
Bongino has also adopted an extreme vision of law and power, saying in May 2024: “Power. That is all that matters “, as part of a criticism of the effort of the Biden administration to forgive student loans before laughing at the idea of controls and balances in the government.” That is good. That is really fun. “
The FBI declined to comment. Bongino went to his critics on Monday in his podcast, looking to reach a slightly more level tone while implying that the FBI had been corrupted.
“I understand it, if you are a political opponent of mine who has been involved with the celebration of an armed justice system, how you do not understand how a guy like me that discusses partisan content in an opinion program and go and do (a) unquestionably A non -partisan job, “he said.” I’m going to ask you a simple question.
He continued: “I am committed to the service. People play different roles in their lives. People are parents, people are soccer coach. People are military police and officers and military people enlisted. People are carpenter, people are plumbers. We play different roles in our life, and each one requires a set of different skills. “
The deputy director is the second in command of the FBI, and the work has traditionally been occupied by a professional agent who manages daily operations in the 55 office field offices. Work, like other comparable publications, does not require the approval of the Senate.
But neither Bongino nor the director of the FBI Kash Patel have served in the agency that will now lead, and their public criticisms to the FBI and the embrace of erroneous information and partisanism are asking questions about how they will direct the FBI, even when they insist that they will go To clean the policy agency.
In the Podcast of Bongino from May 2017 to Monday, there were more than 21,000 mentions of “FBI” or “Deep State”, according to data from the podcast databases of Followingfight podcasts. The mentions reached its maximum point in June 2023, Trump’s month was accused of obstruction and other crimes after federal officials accused him of monopolizing classified documents. The case was dismissed after Trump won the 2024 elections.
Bongino was not always critical of the office; In episodes of early 2017 and before, he maintained a quite deferential tone. But in the last months of that year, things changed.
He began to discuss conspiracy theories that the Obama administration had illegally spy in the Trump presidential campaign in 2016 with the FBI, despite the lack of evidence.
And at the end of Trump’s first year in office, Bongino had reached a revelation, he said, claiming in an episode of December 14, 2017 that believed that FBI’s leadership had interfered in the United States elections through the collection through the collection Information about the 2016 Trump presidential campaign in an attempt to manipulate the elections for Democrat Hillary Clinton. At that time, the FBI was, in fact, very criticized for launching information on the use of Clinton of a private email server for official public communications.
It has also been one of the most noisy supporters of the unfounded statements that the 2020 elections were stolen, with the railing often about what, according to him, it was a coordinated effort of politicians and democratic groups to manipulate social networks, Voting laws, survey workers and email vote launches the elections to Democrat Joe Biden.
Biden won in 2020; There was no generalized electoral fraud, according to members of Trump’s own administration. But Bongino warned that without addressing these alleged injustices, the same “clique” would interfere with the 2024 elections.
Bongino’s criticisms initially focused on senior officials who, according to him, were partisan. But after the FBI obtained a search warrant to recover classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-lago In an August 2022 Fox & Friends interview. “And then, when the left begins to complain in the media, shoot 100 more the next day. Don’t even let them breathe, everyone has to leave, you don’t even live in a constitutional republic, and you don’t have to fix this, you just have to rebuild it. ”
“I will say that for the tenth or twenty time this week, that is why the FBI must be dissolved,” Bongino said in an episode of September 2022. “You understand that this will get worse, you will not solve this. The organization must dissolve. “
Bongino intensified his attacks against the FBI in 2023, characterizing the agency as a “clear and present danger” for the United States. Bongino accused the FBI of systemic corruption, claiming that he colluded with foreign governments, spread misinformation, suppressed the information related to the son of Biden Hunter Biden and interfered in the elections.
He frequently addressed the then director of FBI Christopher Wray, qualifying his leadership and suggesting that the agency had become a tool for political oppression. Bongino also said that the FBI actively suppressed information about COVID-19, violated the first amendment and addressed Donald Trump and conservatives.
Bongino continued to make the call to dissolve the FBI until 2024.
It is not entirely clear how Bongino entered the race for the deputy director.
He has experience in application of the law, having served in the Secret Service of the United States, in details for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He was also in the New York Police Department.
Since then, he has been in Trump’s orbit as conservative commentator. He worked at Fox News from 2021 to 2023, and was chosen to organize a radio program in the same slot as Rush Limbaugh after his death of 2021.
Bongino will be one of the almost two dozen Fox News personalities in the Trump administration, a list that includes the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy and the National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard. Trump worked in a similar way to his first administration with several of the network employees.
In July, the conservative trends The Daily Signal published a YouTube interview with Bongino in which he said he would be open to lead the FBI “if President Trump called.”
In November 2024, shortly after Trump’s choice, Bongino began to press his listeners on behalf of Patel, urging them to share positive endorsements for the nomination of the director of the FBI of Patel on social networks.
“Friends, we need Kash Patel in the FBI. As regards me at this time, he is the only guy who knows where the bodies are buried and they enter there and clean that disorder, we have to get Kash, ”Bongino said in an episode of November 19 of his podcast. From the elections, he has mentioned Patel in at least 40 separate episodes.
To take the position in the FBI, Bongino has to give up his microphone. Trump said in his announcement that Bongino was “willing and prepared.”
“Great news for the application of American law and justice!” Trump said in a publication on the social networks that announced the appointment.
