WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) – FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino will step down from his post next month, he said on Wednesday, ending a short and at times tumultuous tenure as the bureau’s second highest-ranking official.
Bongino announced the move on social media hours after President Donald Trump said he thought Bongino wanted to “go back to his show.” He hosted a prominent right-wing podcast prior to joining the FBI.
“Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump told reporters.
Bongino, a former New York City police officer, member of the Secret Service and right-wing podcaster, was an unusual pick for the FBI’s No. 2 post, which historically had been filled by career agents who had worked their way up the ranks. He was made deputy over objections from the FBI Agents Association, a group representing 14,000 primarily current agents, despite earlier assurances from FBI Director Kash Patel that he would install a career agent.
“I want to thank President Trump, AG Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose,” Bongino wrote in a post on X, referring to Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Several people briefed on the matter told Reuters that Bongino’s belongings in his office were already boxed up, though another person said he was working on Wednesday at FBI Headquarters.
PROMOTED CONSPIRACIES ABOUT PIPE BOMBS, EPSTEIN
As a podcaster, Bongino had promoted a range of conspiracy theories that came back to haunt him once he was handed a position of power, with notable examples relating to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Trump as well as to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Bongino had claimed that the planting of pipe bombs at the Democratic and Republican national committee offices on the eve of the January 6 attack was an FBI “inside job.” He walked back that assertion after the FBI in December arrested a suspect in the five-year-old case, and said in a Fox News interview afterward that he had been paid to voice controversial opinions.
Bongino’s tenure at the FBI has been in question since July, when issues related to Epstein came to a head.
That month, the Justice Department and FBI leadership jointly issued a memo that backtracked on a pledge to release investigative files on Epstein and poured cold water on a variety of long-held conspiracy theories that Bongino had promoted on his podcast.
The memo enraged many of Trump’s followers who adhered to the Epstein conspiracy theories and rejected the DOJ’s findings that there was no incriminating “client list” to release and that Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Jasper Ward and Bhargav Acharya; Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward; editing by David Ljunggren and Scott Malone)
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