Editorials & Other Articles

Why put the Kash Patel/Dan Bongino duo atop the FBI?

This is a step a president takes when he wants to tear down the bureau and turn it into something new and twisted.

As the scandal unfolded, far-right podcaster Dan Bongino used his own program to extend some advice to his ideological brethren: Those caught up in the mess, Bongino said, should not cooperate with the FBI.

Six months later, Donald Trump decided it’d be a good idea to put the far-right media personality in a key leadership post at the FBI. NBC News reported:

President Donald Trump on Sunday announced the selection of conservative commentator and former Fox News host Dan Bongino to serve as deputy FBI director, filling a position typically held by a career FBI agent with an influential media personality who has called for mass firings at the bureau. Bongino will lead the bureau alongside Kash Patel, who was narrowly confirmed as FBI director by the Senate last week.

The deputy director position is effectively responsible for running the bureau’s day-to-day operations, as The New York Times reported, it is “a complex and grueling job that requires working closely with foreign partners and navigating sensitive investigations.”

For generations, the administrative position has gone to senior agents with extensive FBI experience. According to NBC News’ reporting, this trend was supposed to continue: Patel privately agreed — shortly before the president’s announcement — that the next FBI deputy director would be an active special agent with operational expertise and experience, as well as institutional knowledge and respect within the bureau.

It was against this backdrop that Trump instead chose a podcaster with literally no FBI experience for the job. The fact that Bongino worked as a Secret Service agent and NYPD officer is of interest, but it's also not altogether relevant.....

NBC News’ reporting also noted that Bongino has spent many hours specifically spouting “baseless falsehoods” about the bureau itself, leading current and former FBI feeling “appalled — and extremely concerned for the national security of the country.”

I don’t doubt that there will still be an institution called the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but with Patel and Bongino at the helm, it will not be the FBI.

Before 51 Senate Republicans voted to confirm Patel last week, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on the chamber’s floor, “If your plan is to destroy the rule of law and turn the Department of Justice into a political weapon that rewards loyalty and punishes dissent, then Kash Patel is the perfect person to lead the FBI.”

Bongino makes the same problem vastly worse.