Staff Reports
Dan Bongino announced on December 17, 2025, that he will leave his post as deputy director of the FBI next month, bringing to an end a whirlwind tenure that began earlier this year. The move confirms what many Americans suspected: a man who answered the call to serve under President Trump has decided the battle to reform the bureau will continue outside its marble halls.
Bongino’s path to the FBI was unconventional — a New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned top-rated conservative podcaster who accepted a White House invitation to serve in March. He gave up a lucrative media career and daily platform to try to fix an agency that, for too long, operated with the smell of politicization and secrecy.
His time at the bureau was never going to be tidy. Bongino’s critics seized on past commentary about Jeffrey Epstein and the January 6 investigations, and his willingness to question the status quo made him a lightning rod inside and outside the agency. Yet those controversies were dwarfed by the larger story: a bureaucratic culture resistant to transparency, which he tried to shake up in a matter of months.
Even the president acknowledged what opponents refuse to admit publicly — Bongino may simply miss the microphone. When asked about the departure, President Trump suggested the deputy director “wants to go back to his show,” a candid reminder that conservative voices on radio and podcasting still matter in our national conversation. If true, returning to the media will give Bongino a bigger megaphone to keep pressing for accountability.
Make no mistake: appointing outsiders like Bongino and Kash Patel to lead the FBI was a deliberate corrective to a decades-long pattern of insiders protecting insiders. That move provoked the expected howls from those who profit from the status quo, but it also exposed how entrenched interests slow reform and punish those who bring fresh scrutiny. Americans who value the rule of law should applaud anyone willing to walk into that lion’s den.
As Bongino prepares to depart in January 2026, conservatives should view his resignation not as a retreat but as a regrouping. He showed courage by stepping into a role most careerists would never vacate, and he did it at real personal cost; now he can continue the fight publicly, where he can name names and rally citizens to demand a truly apolitical FBI. The real work of reclaiming our institutions is just beginning, and patriots should stand ready to support leaders who don’t flinch from that fight.
