By Sarah N. Lynch
WASHINGTON, Dec 17 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he thought FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino wanted to “go back to his show,” following media reports that the former podcaster was planning to quit his role.
“Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump told reporters.
The FBI declined to comment.
Bongino, a former New York City police officer, member of the Secret Service and right-wing podcaster, was an unusual pick for the FBI’s No. 2 post, which historically had been filled by career agents who had worked their way up the ranks. He was made deputy over objections from the FBI Agents Association, a group representing 14,000 primarily current agents, despite earlier assurances from FBI Director Kash Patel that he would install a career agent.
Several people briefed on the matter told Reuters that Bongino’s belongings in his office were already boxed up, though another person said he was working on Wednesday at FBI Headquarters.
PROMOTED CONSPIRACIES ABOUT PIPE BOMBS, EPSTEIN
As a podcaster, Bongino had promoted a range of conspiracy theories that came back to haunt him once he was handed a position of power, with notable examples relating to the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump as well as to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Bongino had claimed that the planting of pipe bombs at the Democratic and Republican national committee offices on the eve of the January 6 attack was an FBI “inside job.” He walked back that assertion after the FBI in December arrested a suspect in the five-year-old case, and said in a Fox News interview afterward that he had been paid to voice controversial opinions.
Bongino’s tenure at the FBI has been in question since July, when issues related to Epstein came to a head.
That month, the Justice Department and FBI leadership jointly issued a memo that backtracked on a pledge to release investigative files on Epstein and poured cold water on a variety of long-held conspiracy theories that Bongino had promoted on his podcast.
The memo enraged many of Trump’s followers who adhered to the Epstein conspiracy theories and rejected the DOJ’s findings that there was no incriminating “client list” to release and that Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell.
(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Jasper Ward and Bhargav Acharya; editing by David Ljunggren and Scott Malone)
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