WorldNetDaily may have published a book by Dan Bongino in which he essentially claimed he quit the Secret Service because he didn’t want to protect a Democratic president, but it got mad at him last year when he claimed that Jeffrey Epstein really did kill himself in prison. (It did, however, approvingly repeat Bongino’s claim that he was “shocked to the core” by unnamed FBI investigations.)
When Bongino left the FBi at the start of the year, Joe Kovacs marked the occasion in a Dec. 17 article in which he noted that “Bongino did not specify any reason for his departure from the bureau, but President Trump hinted the reason might be a desire to be broadcasting again.” Kovacs bid him a fond farewell in a Jan. 4 article:
Dan Bongino is now the former deputy director of the FBI, as his final day working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation was Saturday.
Bongino said on X Saturday evening as President Donald Trump announced the arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro: “It was a busy last day on the job. This will be my last post on this account.
“Tomorrow I return to civilian life. It’s been an incredible year thanks to the leadership and decisiveness of President Trump.
Kovacs also defended Bongino over his Epstein-related actions, mostly by throwing Pam Bondi under the bus:
Bongino reportedly took issue with Attorney General Pam Bondi’s “nothing to see here” memo regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case earlier in July, with rumors he nearly resigned his position over the decision.
As WorldNetDaily reported, there were numerous reports at the time that if Bondi remained as attorney general, then either FBI Director Kash Patel or Bongino may quit.
Journalist and Trump ally Laura Loomer said on July 11: “We might not have a Deputy FBI Director by Monday. We could possibly see a weekend resignation from the FBI by Dan Bongino.
“Source tells me Kash Patel agrees with Bongino’s sentiment and also agrees that Blondi needs to be removed from her post as AG.
“Now it’s up to President Trump to step in. The MAGA base would like to see Trump FIRE Blondi. She is a massive liability to this otherwise great administration.”
The next day, Kovacs uncritically quoted Bongino dutifully sticking to the pro-Trump script:
Dan Bongino, former deputy director of the FBI in the Trump administration, is now letting loose on his first day as a private citizen, saying he is “looking forward to big things ahead” as he’ll be returning to his radio broadcast.
“We’ve got midterms coming up, and there’s no time for bullsh**,” Bongino saidMonday, noting he’s taking a couple of days to spend with family.
“This administration is cooking and REAL change simmers. If you’re spending your entire day bitching and whining with 3/4ths of the term still to go, then please find the exits. There’s no time for it. It’s not ‘infighting’ when you excise a cancer killing the host. It’s ‘outfighting’ because you’re not part of any movement I’m familiar with.”
In none of these articles did Kovacs make any mention of Bongino stating that Epstein did, in fact, commit suicide in prison.
In a Jan. 6 article, Kovacs featured a war of words between Bongino and Matt Gaetz:
A simple question by former Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz about previous runs for political office by Dan Bongino has sparked an explosive and graphic attack by the former deputy director of the FBI, as he’s calling Gaetz a “d**k” and “a piece of s**t.”
As WorldNetDaily reported Monday, Bongino had posted on his first day out of the FBI: “I started in this movement as a candidate during the Tea Party movement, and I began my political commentary career shortly thereafter. I helped build this movement and I sure as hell am not going to let it get hijacked by a group of black-pillers, life-losers, grifters and bums. We are a movement guided by truth.”
Gaetz, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to be U.S. attorney general before withdrawing himself, says he was unaware of the political races Bongino had run, so he asked X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok: “When did Dan Bongino run for office and how did he perform as a candidate?”
Bongino reacted to the question with a scathing attack against Gaetz, saying: “Maybe if I spent more time at shady parties with monied insiders I would’ve won. I heard you’d know a bit about that. You’ve always been a d**k by the way. Grifting off your daddy like a suckling little doggie. When I first met you in the panhandle I knew you were a piece of s**t. It’s written all over that phony face of yours.”
[…]Incidentally, Grok’s answer to the original question was: “Dan Bongino ran for office three times as a Republican:
“- 2012: US Senate (Maryland) – Won primary (34%), lost general to Ben Cardin (D) with 26% of vote.
“- 2014: US House (MD-6) – Won primary, lost general to John Delaney (D) with 48% (narrow 1.5% margin).
“- 2016: US House (FL-19) – Placed 3rd in primary with 17%.”
Kovacs used a Jan. 14 article to provide a Trump-friendly answer to a Bongino statement from the previous year:
Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is finally breaking his silence about what “shocked” him down to his “core” during his tenure at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
As WorldNetDaily reported in July, Bongino posted a cryptic message on X stating: “The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations. It is a priority for us.
“But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.”
That post collected more than 20 million views, with many wondering to what he was specifically referring.
Bongino, now a private citizen after leaving the bureau Jan. 4, appeared on “The Vince Coglianese Show” Tuesday to go public about the message, saying it had to to with Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign concerning claims of Russian collusion.
“It was basically about Crossfire. I was just reading some stuff about Crossfire,” Bongino said. “And … I was blown away … I lived in this kind of tiny apartment in D.C., … And I’m sitting there and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I couldn’t believe it happened here.’ You know, Vince, like having been a Secret Service agent, a police officer, and I hadn’t been in the FBI role that long, but it had been a few months.”
Kovacs then offered another Trump-friendly quote from Bongino: “The NY Times has a boiling-bunny-like obsession with me. They’re averaging a few stories a week to feed their lemmings. They run the same play over and over and they wonder why they keep losing the game.” Once again, Kovacs failed to mention that Bongino said that Epstein really did kill himself.