Dan Bongino, a former conservative podcaster who became the No. 2 official at the FBI in the Trump administration, announced Wednesday that he is leaving the bureau next month.
"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," he wrote on X.
President Donald Trump appeared to indicate in remarks to reporters earlier Wednesday that Bongino would be stepping down.
"Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show," Trump said.
After Bongino's announcement, FBI Director Kash Patel called him "the best partner I could’ve asked for in helping restore this FBI."
"He not only completed his mission — he far exceeded it," Patel said on X. "We will miss him but I’m thankful he accepted the call to serve. Our country is better and safer for it."
Trump tapped Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and New York City police officer, for the deputy post in February.
While Trump’s first term in office was marked by a record amount of turnover at the highest echelons of government, the first year of his second term has been relatively stable at those levels, despite mass layoffs, buyouts and firings among rank-and-file government workers. Mike Waltz, who started off the term as Trump's national security adviser, was later named U.S. ambassador to the United Nations after his involvement in what became known as Signalgate.
NBC News previously reported that Bongino considered resigning in July after the FBI and the Justice Department said in a joint memo that they had completed an “exhaustive” review of investigative files relating to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and that no other people would be charged in the case and the agencies would not be releasing any more information.
Sources told NBC News at the time that Bongino got into a heated argument with Attorney General Pam Bondi after the release of the memo, which had sparked outrage from some Trump supporters.
Before he joined the administration, Bongino hosted a podcast on which he alleged there had been a massive cover-up involving the Epstein files.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche pushed back against reports at the time that Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel had been upset about the memo, writing on X, “All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions stated in the memo. The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.”
Bongino did not return to work for at least one day after the argument with Bondi, but he ultimately stayed.
The White House announced in August that Andrew Bailey, then the Missouri attorney general, was being brought in as “co-deputy director” of the FBI.
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday night on whether a replacement for Bongino would be named.
Bondi credited Bongino this month for his work in helping identify and bring charges against a suspect in the long-stalled investigation into pipe bombs that were found near the Democratic and Republican national committees’ headquarters on the morning of Jan. 6, 2021, the day a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol.
“This case languished. It sat there for four years, collecting dust. No one did anything to solve this, and right when Kash Patel and Dan Bongino came in, Dan said to me, Dan said to all of us, ‘I’m going to solve this case,’” Bondi told “Fox & Friends.” “He put a new team on it” and they solved the case, she said, calling it “great police work.”
The suspect, Brian Cole Jr., has pleaded not guilty.
NBC News first reported that Cole told FBI agents that he believed in the type of 2020 election conspiracy theories Trump promoted in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack.
Bongino said on the day Cole was charged that he had been determined to track down the person responsible.
“You’re not going to walk into our capital city, put down two explosive devices and walk off in the sunset,” Bongino said. “Not going to happen — we were going to track this person to the end of the Earth. There was no way he was getting away.”
Inside the FBI, some viewed Bongino as obsessed with the pipe bomb case, demanding a briefing as soon as he joined the bureau, an account Bongino confirmed this month in an interview with Sean Hannity.
“My first meeting,” Bongino told Hannity, “I said when I get in there, 'I want a full brief on this pipe bomber case on day one.'”
Bongino had claimed, in a 2024 episode of his podcast, that the pipe bomb was an “inside job” to stop Trump.
“This was a setup. I have zero doubt,” he said last year.
Bongino appeared to distance himself from those remarks in the Hannity interview.
“Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” Bongino said. “And one day, I’ll be back in that space. But that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”
