Dan Bongino says he is stepping down as FBI deputy director after just 10 months on the job.
The FBI’s No. 2 announced his exit from the bureau in an X post on Wednesday afternoon, following reports that he had begun clearing out his office.
“I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January. I want to thank President Trump, AG Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose,” Bongino, 51, wrote. “Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you. God bless America, and all those who defend Her. 🇺🇸”
I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January.
I want to thank President Trump, AG Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose.
Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you.
God bless America, and…— Dan Bongino (@FBIDDBongino) December 17, 2025
Amid the never-ending saga surrounding the will-they, won’t-they release of the Epstein files, Bongino has told people around him he could depart “as soon as this week or as late as mid-January,” the The New York Times reported earlier on Wednesday.
MS Now reported that Bongino told confidants he plans to formally quit early in the new year and will not return to headquarters to work this month, citing eight people briefed on his account.
The Times said the former Secret Service special agent has already begun sending office “knick-knacks” and other personal items back to Florida, where he intends to return to pro-Trump broadcasting ahead of the 2026 midterms.
He told his team and some senior FBI officials that he was planning to announce his decision to leave the agency on Dec. 19, four people told MS Now.
Trump-friendly outlet Fox News, citing sources, has disputed that Bongino’s office is already empty, but conceded that his imminent departure is a “possibility.”
Bongino declined to confirm or deny reports of his plans when reached by MS Now. “Print whatever you’d like. No one believes you anyway. Thanks,” he told the outlet.
It was reported last week by former Politico journalist Rachael Bade that Bongino was to be Trump’s “fall-guy” over Epstein, although the FBI denied this to be the case to the Daily Beast in the strongest terms.
An FBI source told the Daily Beast on Wednesday: “While we all serve at the pleasure of the president, of course, it’s not in any way true Bongino is being axed over the Epstein files or anything else. If and when he does leave, it would be on his own.”
Bongino, 51—a longtime Trump loyalist who took the job in February—has publicly acknowledged the tension between his prior media role and his FBI position.
He built a MAGA following by stoking suspicions of a cover-up and demanding the government release everything on Trump’s former friend, the late pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. The president denies any wrongdoing related to Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on child sex trafficking charges, but his links continue to haunt him.
After Bongino took office as FBI deputy director on March 17, 2025, he angered MAGA by pivoting to a more cautious line—framing delays as necessary to protect victims—just as the administration’s transparency promises unraveled.
In July, after a DOJ-FBI memo said there was no “client list” and reaffirmed Epstein’s suicide, Bongino reportedly skipped work and issued an ultimatum in a clash with Attorney General Pam Bondi: “She goes, or I go.”
FBI sources told the Beast earlier this month that Bongino had always been due to be on paid leave, although when he returned, his public posture appeared to become defensive.
Bloomberg’s FOIA Files then supplied the documents behind the drama. Emails obtained by the outlet showed the FBI’s “Special Redaction Project,” including crash-course training for about 1,000 agents at the Central Records Complex in Winchester, Virginia, and $851,344 in overtime between March 17 and March 22.
A March 18 email chain forwarded to Bongino with redaction “guidance” prompted him to insist on X earlier this month that he had requested the earlier correspondence to see what had been done before he started.
In appearance on Fox News days later, he told host Sean Hannity: “I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day I will be back in that space—but that’s not what I’m paid for now,” adding: “I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”
Bongino has also upset colleagues. Earlier this month, a group of anonymous agents leaked a dossier listing the failings of Bongino and his boss, Director Kash Patel, while calling on them to go.
His possible exit comes as Patel, 45, also faces intensifying scrutiny over his ongoing habit of broadcasting investigative updates online.
Just this week, during the manhunt after a Brown University classroom shooting that killed two people and injured nine, he posted about a “person of interest” who was later released.
Representative Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat, said Patel should “take a lesson” from local officials and “not jump the gun,” according to The Providence Journal.
It is just the latest in a long line of embarrassing flubs that have seen Patel earn the nickname “Keystone Kash.”
The FBI declined to comment to the Daily Beast.
The post Dan Bongino Leaving FBI Gig After Just 10 Months on Job appeared first on The Daily Beast.
