Key Points
- FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is stepping down in January.
- President Donald Trump said that Bongino “did a great job,” adding, “I think he wants to go back to his show.”
- Bongino, the No. 2 FBI official under Director Kash Patel, made comments about Jeffrey Epstein and the Jan. 6 pipe bombing attempt that resurfaced after his appointment.
Patel, in a post on X, said “Dan is the best partner I could’ve asked for in helping restore this FBI.”
“He not only completed his mission — he far exceeded it,” Patel wrote. “We will miss him but I’m thankful he accepted the call to serve. Our country is better and safer for it.”
Bongino had no prior FBI when Trump tapped him for the high-profile law enforcement post.
His prior discussion of conspiracy theories on right-wing media resurfaced after he joined the government.
While a private citizen, Bongino reportedly suggested that the planting of pipe bombs in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was an “inside job.”
But earlier this month, Bongino took a victory lap when federal agents, after a nearly five-year search, arrested and charged Brian Cole Jr. with setting those devices. Cole is not associated with the FBI or other federal authorities.
When asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity how his recent comments squared with his past claims about the pipe bombs, Bongino said he was “paid in the past” for his opinions, “and one day I will be back in that space.”
“That’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts,” he said.
Bongino also previously questioned official accounts of the circumstances around Jeffrey Epstein’s death. The wealthy financier and notorious sex offender hanged himself while in jail in August 2019, after his arrest on child sex trafficking charges.
As an FBI official, Bongino said there was no question that Epstein died by suicide.
“I have reviewed the case. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. There’s no evidence in the case file indicating otherwise,” he wrote on X in May.
In July, the FBI released a memo concluding that Epstein died by suicide and that his rumored “client list” did not exist.
That memo sparked a backlash among members of Trump’s MAGA movement, where conspiracy theories about Epstein have proliferated for years.
Soon after, Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi angrily confronted each other at the White House, according to a New York Times report.
Friday is the deadline for the Trump administration to comply with a bipartisan law ordering the release of the government’s files on its Epstein investigations.
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is stepping down in January
Bongino had been selected by President Donald Trump for the high-profile law enforcement job despite him having no prior FBI experience.
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