FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino speaks throughout a information convention on an arrest of a suspect within the January sixth pipe bomb case on the Department of Justice on Dec. 4, 2025.
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Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
FBI deputy director Dan Bongino mentioned Wednesday he plans to step down from the bureau in January.
In a press release posted on X, Bongino thanked President Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel “for the chance to serve with function.”
Bongino was an uncommon decide for the No. 2 submit on the FBI, a essential job overseeing the bureau’s day-to-day affairs historically held by a profession agent. Neither Bongino nor his boss, Patel, had any earlier expertise on the FBI.
Bongino did have earlier regulation enforcement expertise, as a police officer and later as a Secret Service agent, in addition to a protracted historical past of vocal help for Trump.
Bongino made his title over the previous decade as a pro-Trump, far-right podcaster who pushed conspiracy theories, together with some involving the FBI. He had been essential of the bureau, embracing the narrative that it had been “weaponized” in opposition to conservatives and even calling its brokers “thugs.”
His tenure on the bureau was at occasions tumultuous, together with a conflict with Justice Department management over the administration’s dealing with of the Jeffrey Epstein information.
But it additionally concerned the arrest earlier this month of the person authorities say is answerable for inserting two pipe bombs close to the Democratic and Republican committee headquarters, hours earlier than the assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
In an uncommon association, Bongino has had a co-deputy director since this summer time when the Trump administration tapped Andrew Bailey, a former legal professional common of Missouri, to serve alongside Bongino within the No. 2 job.
President Trump praised Bongino in short remarks to reporters earlier than he introduced he was stepping down.”Dan did an excellent job,” Trump mentioned. “I feel he desires to return to his present.”
