The MAGA acolyte tapped by Donald Trump to be FBI deputy director admits he doesn’t like his job and says it often makes him feel like he’s dying inside.
Three months after taking on the senior intelligence role, right-wing provocateur Dan Bongino has revealed his new role has “been tough” on his wife and family, but he felt he didn’t have a choice after Trump nominated him.
“It was a lot,” he told Fox & Friends in a candid interview on Thursday.
“People ask me all the time, you know: do you like it? And I say no, I don’t, but the president didn’t ask me to do this to like it. Nobody likes going into an organization like that.
“Part of you dies a little bit when you still see all this stuff from behind the scenes.”
Bongino, a former Secret Service agent, was a popular podcaster who had built a career unleashing sometimes inflammatory rants against the Democrats, the media, and the federal government.
But while MAGA Republicans rejoiced in his appointment alongside FBI director Kash Patel, his honeymoon was cut short after he appeared on Fox and dismissed conspiracy theories about the death of Jeffrey Epstein.
Bongino and Patel faced the wrath of some in Trump’s base after proclaiming that the alleged sex trafficker had died by suicide, contrary to those who believed he was killed in prison.
This week, he reopened three Biden-era cases that are likely to curry favor with the MAGA world. The first is a probe into the pipe bombs that were found near the Democratic Party and the Republican Party headquarters on the day of the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021.
The second is an investigation into the 2022 leak of the unpublished Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case that overturned Roe v Wade.
And the third is an investigation into a bag of cocaine found at the White House in 2023, which Trump has previously speculated may have belonged to Joe Biden or his former drug addict son, Hunter. (The Biden family was not staying at the White House when the cocaine was discovered, but were at the presidential retreat Camp David in Maryland.)
“Shortly after swearing in, the Director and I evaluated a number of cases of potential public corruption that, understandably, have garnered public interest. We made the decision to either re-open, or push additional resources and investigative attention to these cases,” Bongino said on X.
Speaking on Fox & Friends, Bongino said the FBI had suffered from reputational damage under its previous leadership and part of his mission was to “build public trust” in the 38,000-strong organisation.
“One of the ways to do it is through cases of public interest that matter,” he said.
He also criticized former FBI director James Comey, who has come under fire after his controversial “86 47” seashell Instagram post. Critics alleged the photo, which Comey posted then deleted, was an incitement to violence against Trump, America’s 47th president.
“This man is a disgrace,” Bongino said. “We have wasted countless man hours now running out tips to our tip line about people 8674 because of James Comey, because he can not control himself and his emotions. He is a child. He is a big child.”
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