This is an adapted excerpt from the Dec. 15 episode of “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
You may have seen some weird chatter recently about Dan Bongino, the right-wing former podcaster whom Donald Trump installed as the deputy director of the FBI. According to reports, Bongino may not be sticking around the bureau for much longer.
In a report on the FBI prepared for Congress last month by active-duty and retired agents, Bongino is referred to as “something of a clown.”
Some reports say he has cleared out his FBI office already. Another says his office is not empty but he is planning to decide about his future in the coming weeks, whatever that means.
But it would not be all that surprising if Bongino were on his way out. He is the first FBI deputy director with zero experience at the bureau, unless you count his podcasts about how the agency should be disbanded.
Since taking the job, Bongino has not sounded super happy with his life at the FBI, nor has the FBI appeared especially happy with him.
In a report on the FBI prepared for Congress last month by active-duty and retired agents, Bongino is referred to as “something of a clown.”
The White House even installed a kind of babysitter for Bongino, appointing an unprecedented co-deputy director to share the job with him, which was widely seen as the first step in replacing him.
Then there’s Bongino’s boss, Kash Patel, a fellow former right-wing podcaster who is now director of the FBI. MS NOW has reported that Trump is considering firing him as well, because of the “unflattering headlines Patel has recently generated.”
That includes reporting that Patel diverted members of an elite FBI SWAT team to provide security for his girlfriend. Reportedly, Patel directed that team to drive his girlfriend’s allegedly drunk friend home, more than once.
According to reports, Patel is also using his government jet to visit that girlfriend, to take a golfing trip to Scotland with his buddies and to visit a Texas hunting resort called the Boondoggle Ranch.
Then there was the time he bragged on social media about the FBI busting up a terror plot in Michigan before investigators even had a chance to file charges. According to The Wall Street Journal, some of the suspects’ friends caught wind of the arrests and moved up their plans to leave the country. One of them was intercepted at the airport only at the last moment.
Premature social media posts have kind of become Patel’s thing as FBI director.
In September, hours after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, Patel posted on social media that “the subject” in the killing was “in custody.” But roughly 90 minutes later, Patel had to walk that back when the person was released. That was a correction Patel may have posted from his dinner that night at a trendy New York restaurant, according to reporting from NBC News.
Patel now appears to have done it again. The morning after a shooter killed two people and injured nine more at Brown University on Saturday, Patel proudly posted on social media that, as a result of the FBI’s tireless efforts, a person of interest had been taken into custody.
Hours later, that person was released. As of Tuesday afternoon, the suspected shooter is still at large, and the FBI has released new photos of a person of interest, who they warn is armed and dangerous. They are offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information on the suspect.
It’s clear that, right now, the FBI is a mess.
Could that chaos at the top of the agency hurt its ability to perform its mission — like finding the Brown University shooter, who is still on the loose?
Allison Detzel contributed.
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