‘Slap in the face:’ Bongino appointment sends shockwaves through FBI

WASHINGTON — In a memo on Sunday evening, the FBI Agents Association told its 14,000 members that new director Kash Patel had assured them that he would follow tradition and name a career special agent with operational expertise as his deputy director.

“Director Patel agreed,” said the memo, which Reuters reviewed.

An hour after the memo was sent, Dan Bongino, a right-wing podcaster who has never been an FBI agent and who has called the agency “irredeemably corrupt,” was named to serve as Patel’s deputy director. That position oversees day-to-day operations and carries enormous power to supervise investigations across the nation.

The unprecedented appointment of two loyalists to President Donald Trump has rattled the FBI community and lawyers who worry that their lack of experience and overt statements supporting retribution for the president’s critics could presage a misuse of the nation’s most prominent investigative agency, according to 14 former FBI employees and prosecutors interviewed by Reuters.

“FBI agents’ oaths to support and defend the Constitution will be tested as never before,” said David Laufman, who worked with FBI agents on sensitive investigations for decades, including as chief of counterintelligence for the Justice Department.

Laufman said the appointments of Patel and Bongino “raise alarming questions about whether the FBI will wholly adhere to the rule of law, or instead will become a political investigative tool of the White House.”

Several recently retired career senior FBI officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they fear retribution, said Bongino’s appointment is especially troublesome.

“The deputy director wields incredible power to open investigations and that’s why this position shouldn’t be held – hasn’t really ever been held – by a political appointee,” a former senior FBI executive said. Another former FBI official, who held senior leadership positions in Trump’s first term and during Joe Biden’s presidency, described Bongino’s appointment as a “slap in the face, bold and brazen.”

The FBI declined to comment. Bongino did not respond to a request for comment. Justice Department officials also did not respond.

Over the FBI’s 117-year history, the deputy director has traditionally been a career role filled by an agent who has risen through the ranks. The No. 2 spot manages daily operations for an agency with more than 37,000 employees, including a dozen senior officials in Washington and leaders at 55 field offices.

“I am confident Dan will bring vigor and enthusiasm to the Deputy Director role, driving the operations of this organization in the right direction,” Patel wrote in a message to FBI employees Tuesday. Trump called Bongino “a man of incredible love and passion for our Country.”