FBI Director Kash Patel’s tenure hasn’t quite reached the one-month mark yet, but the conspiracy theorist and partisan operative is already off to a difficult start.
In recent weeks, Patel has misstated key elements of the FBI’s recent work. He reportedly confused intelligence and counterintelligence. He said he planned to spend a lot of time in Las Vegas, where he’s been living. He ordered officials to relocate 1,500 employees from Washington, D.C., and when told the bureau didn’t have the resources for such a restructuring, he reportedly told his subordinates to simply figure out a way to execute his directive.
But perhaps most importantly, the highly controversial new FBI director has taken steps to break down the firewalls that used to exist between his office and the White House. NBC News reported last week that Patel went so far as to ask about creating a possible hotline that would facilitate direct communication between him and Donald Trump.
And now Patel will have a likeminded partner at the bureau’s headquarters. The New York Times reported on right-wing provocateur Dan Bongino declaring on his podcast late last week that he wouldn’t be “some partisan” as he joins the FBI as its new deputy director.
His arrival on Monday as the F.B.I.’s second in command will test that promise, cementing a major shift at the nation’s premier law enforcement agency, where he joins its director, Kash Patel, in overseeing a bureau of about 38,000 people. It puts two staunch Trump loyalists in charge of an agency long known for its tradition of independence. Collectively, they have the least leadership experience of any pair overseeing the F.B.I. since its founding more than a century ago.
At this point, some readers might wonder why Bongino only arrived at the bureau this week. If the president appointed the conservative media personality to the position nearly a month ago, and Bongino didn’t require Senate confirmation, why didn’t he get to work sooner?
As it turns out, Bongino delayed his arrival at the FBI to fulfill contractual obligations with advertisers who sponsored his podcast.
Time will tell how Bongino, who’s never worked at the bureau in any capacity, is received, but NBC News reported last month that current and former FBI officials “expressed shock and dismay” after Trump selected the right-wing podcaster — and ardent FBI critic — to help run the bureau’s day-to-day operations.
As we discussed soon after, the disconcert was understandable. The podcaster has condemned the FBI as “irredeemably corrupt” and called for mass firings within the bureau. Bongino, an unabashed election denier, is even on record falsely accusing the FBI of playing a role in instigating the Jan. 6 attack.
Just as notably, he’s been equally disdainful of Americans who dare to disagree him. “My entire life right now is about owning the libs,” Bongino has said. “That’s it. The libs, because they have shown themselves … to be pure, unadulterated evil.”
The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg added in a recent column, “When a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts last year, the conservative podcaster Dan Bongino made a veiled threat on social media. ‘The irony about this for the scumbag commie libs, is that the cold civil war they’re pushing for will end really badly for them,’ he wrote. Liberals, said Bongino, had been playing at revolution, and would now get a taste of the real thing. ‘They’re not ready for what comes next.’”
What comes next will soon come into focus, as the least-experienced FBI leadership team in the history of American law enforcement gets to work.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
