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Trump’s Moves to Upend Federal Bureaucracy Touch Off Fear and Confusion

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Trump’s Moves to Upend Federal Bureaucracy Touch Off Fear and Confusion

An Education Department employee was attending a funeral this week when she got the call: She was being placed on administrative leave because she works on projects that connect Black students, among others, to federal government programs.

A disabled veteran employed at the Department of Veterans Affairs grew emotional when he heard about the rescinding of telework options, unsure whether it would mean the end of his job taking care of fellow soldiers.

A Federal Trade Commission employee was so anxious that he told family members not to talk about politics on unencrypted lines. Across government agencies, workers eyed one another nervously, wondering whether a colleague would report them, accusing them of resisting the new administration’s move to end certain programs.

President Trump’s rapid push to overhaul the federal bureaucracy in his first days in office has been met with a mix of fear, fury and confusion throughout the work force.

Dozens of employees across the government, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of worries of retribution, described agencies gripped with uncertainty about how to implement the new policies and workers frantically trying to assess the impact on their careers and families. As the nation’s largest employer, the upheaval in the federal government could reverberate in communities throughout the country.

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Starting on Inauguration Day, the orders and memos came down one after the other, many crafted in the pugnacious tone of a campaign speech: the shuttering of “Radical and Wasteful” diversity programs in federal agencies; the stripping of civil service protections from a share of the federal work force; the end to remote work, which, one administration memo claimed, had left federal office buildings “mostly empty” and rendered downtown Washington “a national embarrassment.”

All new hiring was frozen, job offers were rescinded, scientific meetings were canceled and federal health officials were temporarily barred from communicating with the public, a directive that some understood as so broad that it even extended to making outside purchase orders for lab supplies.

For the more than two million federal workers, roughly four-fifths of whom live outside the Washington area, change is inevitable whenever a new administration takes over. But few had expected it to come at this speed and scale.

“They are being upended in the most brutal and traumatic way imaginable,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit that works to promote excellence and best practices in the federal government. Mr. Stier said he had deep concerns about the consequences of Mr. Trump’s swift changes on the ability of the country to face a range of threats, from terrorism to pandemics.

An ambition to change things is reasonable, he said. But “the speed is unnecessary and destructive,” he added.

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Federal employees looked to their supervisors for guidance, but said they often had none to give, as they tried to interpret brief orders and memos with few specifics. For example, the return-to-office memo said employees with a disability could be exempt, but it was unclear what kind of disability might qualify. Some managers said they knew nothing beyond what was in the news. Adding to the panic were remarks by the president himself, who suggested on Friday that he might consider shuttering the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which employs 20,000 workers around the country.

A spokesperson from the Office of Personnel Management defended the actions in a statement, calling them “exciting steps to build a federal work force based on merit, excellence and accomplishment, so we can have a government that serves the public effectively and efficiently.”

“We have already saved millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars that are no longer directed to DEIA programs that wasted millions of hard-earned taxpayer dollars and discriminated against federal workers,” the statement said, referring to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility efforts.

Donald F. Kettl, an emeritus professor at the University of Maryland who studies the civil service, said there was widespread consensus among experts that the civil service is in need of changes.

“It’s too hard to hire, it’s too tough to fire, and there’s too little match between the civil service system and the capacity government needs to handle 21st-century challenges,” Dr. Kettl said.

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But he said that many of the Trump administration’s proposed changes would be counterproductive. “They’re focused much more on shifting the balance of power than they are on improving the results of government,” he said.

Inside federal offices, the mood has been tense and anticipatory. One employee at the Homeland Security Department said the staff felt at risk of being fired at any moment. At the Commerce Department, employees were terrified whenever a meeting was called, one worker said.

The isolation is deepened, some federal employees said, by the fact that most of their fellow Americans see the federal government as bloated and inefficient. Some said that reform, if it were well thought-out, would be healthy and welcome. But many noted that they had accepted significant pay cuts to work for the government because they believe in public service — issuing Social Security checks, keeping air travel safe and inspecting food, among other roles.

“The reality is that the American economy needs my agency’s work,” said Colin Smalley, a geologist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the president of his local of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. “We keep construction projects going, ports and waterways open, power grids functioning, and we protect communities from natural disasters and help affected communities recover. Hurting our mission hurts the public.”

Compounding the anxiety was a directive from the Office of Personnel Management instructing agency heads to turn over by Jan. 24 names of those who were still in their probationary period, typically within one or two years of their hiring.

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The directive noted that such employees “can be terminated during that period without triggering appeal rights,” and that managers should determine whether they should be retained, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times.

Jacqueline Simon, the policy director for the American Federation of Government Employees, which has about 300,000 active members across dozens of agencies, said that attempts to terminate federal employees still in their probationary periods could have damaging effects on government services.

For example, she said, employees of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, who work in meat and poultry plants to prevent diseased animals and other contaminants from entering the food supply, frequently leave within a year because the job is so depleting.

“It’s not a job you stay in long,” Ms. Simon said, calling the work “dirty and dangerous.” If the Trump administration were to remove everyone in the service who was still on probation, she added, there would be a severe shortage of inspectors at meat processing plants.

An attorney at a federal enforcement agency said he works on a team of more than a dozen lawyers, more than half of whom are still in their probationary period. If the team were to lose all of its members still on probation, the attorney said, it would be “catastrophic” for the team’s ability to shoulder its law enforcement responsibilities.

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One of the most sweeping changes made by Mr. Trump in his first week was to order federal workers back to the office full time by later next month, ending years of a flexible telecommuting policy, which in many offices dated to well before the pandemic. For some who want to keep working for the government, this could mean selling homes, changing children’s schools and moving hundreds of miles in a matter of weeks. New mothers are debating whether they will be able to return from maternity leave, and couples have been forced to choose who gets to keep their current jobs.

Many offices do not currently have enough room for all of the employees to come back. This, some contend, is the whole point. Shortly after the November election, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the men tapped by Mr. Trump to remake the government, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome.”

“I think we know where it looks like he’s trying to go, which is to force people to quit,” said Representative Glenn F. Ivey of Maryland, a Democrat whose district is home to tens of thousands of federal workers. “They’re going to try and force a lot of federal employees out of work, and then replace them with political loyalists.”

The administration’s efforts are already being challenged in court by unions and other groups, who argue, among other things, that the lifting of civil service protections runs afoul of laws governing federal workers.

Among the first to feel the direct impact of the president’s new policies were employees working on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and programming. Mr. Trump ordered the immediate shutdown of all such offices, with their staff placed on administrative leave by Wednesday at 5 p.m. Agencies were ordered to draw up plans to lay them off by Jan. 31. The administration also threatened employees with “adverse consequences” if they failed to report on colleagues who defy the orders within 10 days, setting up a special email account for such reports.

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The Education Department employee who was placed on leave while she was at a funeral said she had worked on an acclaimed program connecting students with scholarships and industry leaders, and helped Black people tap into government programs they often did not know existed. In various communications, the Trump administration has called such efforts “harmful” and “wasteful.”

“I guess if that’s harmful, then I’m proud of providing that harm — empowering the community to be better because we are brilliant,” she said. “We just don’t have the access to generational wealth and nepotism that they have, so we have to teach people how to make it for themselves.”

In a work force that is nearly 20 percent Black, many employees said there could be another consequence of the moves: making the federal government whiter and less diverse.

By the end of the week, some employees said wearily that they did not know how long they could hang on. Many described conditions as reminiscent of the McCarthy era, and were despondent to see how quickly their office’s leaders acquiesced.

At the Department of Labor, staff members watched a colleague who had been recently hired to a civil service position be escorted out because she was a former political appointee. One employee said her manager required her to scrub the website not only of the words “diversity, equity and inclusion,” as the executive order required, but also of references to “underserved” and “marginalized communities.” Afterward, she said, she went into a closet, called her mother and wept.

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On Tuesday morning, Moriah Lee, an analyst at NASA, joined a virtual town hall to learn what all the orders would mean for her small team, which monitors and audits projects in the space program. The acting supervisors, people she had known personally for years, made it clear to everyone that they were not inclined to show flexibility, she said.

Gone was the weekly speaker series that had been organized under the diversity program, which had brought in deaf people, combat veterans and others to share their experiences. Gone was her ability to live in Nashville and go twice a month to an office two hours away in Huntsville, Ala.

After the meeting, she and her colleagues went back to their jobs. They were rattled, she said, but not afraid. “The people who are acting most in fear are the ones in authority,” she said.

But the change to remote work, combined with the other directives, was just too much for her. And so Ms. Lee sent in her notice: Nearly six years after she began working for the federal government, she was resigning.

Kate Kelly, Hamed Aleaziz and Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Washington.

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Trump vows US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela as he reveals if he’s spoken to Delcy Rodríguez

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Trump vows US ‘in charge’ of Venezuela as he reveals if he’s spoken to Delcy Rodríguez

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President Donald Trump said the U.S. is now in control of Venezuela following the arrest of longtime leader Nicolás Maduro, outlining a plan to run the country, rebuild its economy and delay elections until what he described as a recovery is underway.

Trump made the remarks during a gaggle with reporters as questions mounted about who is governing Venezuela after a U.S. military operation led to Maduro’s arrest early Saturday.

“Don’t ask me who’s in charge because I’ll give you an answer, and it’ll be very controversial,” Trump told a reporter.

He was then asked to clarify, to which Trump replied, “It means we’re in charge.”

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US CAPTURE OF MADURO CHAMPIONED, CONDEMNED ACROSS WORLD STAGE AFTER SURGICAL VENEZUELA STRIKES

Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez addresses the media in Caracas, Venezuela, on March 10, 2025.  (Leonardo Fernandez Viloria/Reuters)

Trump was also asked whether he had spoken directly with Venezuela’s newly sworn-in Vice President Delcy Rodríguez amid uncertainty about how the new government is functioning and what role the U.S. is playing.

While Trump said he has not personally spoken with Rodríguez, he suggested coordination is already underway between U.S. officials and the new leadership.

During the gaggle, Trump repeatedly portrayed Venezuela as a failed state that cannot immediately transition to democratic rule, arguing the country’s infrastructure and economy had been devastated by years of mismanagement.

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TRUMP ISSUES DIRECT WARNING TO VENEZUELA’S NEW LEADER DELCY RODRÍGUEZ FOLLOWING MADURO CAPTURE

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro greets his supporters during a rally in Caracas on Dec. 1, 2025.  (Pedro Mattey/Anadolu via Getty Images)

He compared Venezuela’s collapse to what he claimed would have happened to the U.S. had he lost the election, using the comparison to underscore his argument for intervention.

“We have to do one thing in Venezuela. Bring it back. It’s a dead country right now,” Trump said. “It’s a country that, frankly, we would have been if I had lost the election. We would have been Venezuela on steroids.”

Trump said rebuilding Venezuela will center on restoring its oil industry, which he said had been stripped from the U.S. under previous governments, leaving infrastructure decayed and production crippled.

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UN AMBASSADOR WALTZ DEFENDS US CAPTURE OF MADURO AHEAD OF SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING

A coast guard boat of the Venezuelan Navy operates off the Caribbean coast on Sept. 11, 2025.  (Juan Carlos Hernandez/Reuters)

He stressed that American oil companies – not U.S. taxpayers – will finance the reconstruction, while the U.S. oversees the broader recovery.

“The oil companies are going to go in and rebuild this system. They’re going to spend billions of dollars, and they’re going to take the oil out of the ground, and we’re taking back what they sell,” Trump said. “Remember, they stole our property. It was the greatest theft in the history of America. Nobody has ever stolen our property like they have. They took our oil away from us. They took the infrastructure away. And all that infrastructure is rotted and decayed.”

Trump said elections will not take place until the country is stabilized, arguing that rushing a vote in a collapsed state would repeat past failures.

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TRUMP REVEALS VENEZUELA’S MADURO WAS CAPTURED IN ‘FORTRESS’-LIKE HOUSE: ‘HE GOT BUM RUSHED SO FAST’

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One while traveling from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Tokyo, Japan, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.  (Mark Schiefelbein/AP)

He said the U.S. will manage Venezuela’s recovery process, including addressing inflation, revenue loss and infrastructure collapse.

“We’re going to run everything,” Trump said. “We’re going to run it, fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.”

When asked whether the operation in Venezuela was motivated by oil interests or amounted to regime change, Trump rejected both characterizations and instead cast the effort as part of a broader security doctrine.

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VENEZUELAN LEADER MADURO LANDS IN NEW YORK AFTER BEING CAPTURED BY US FORCES ON DRUG CONSPIRACY CHARGES

President Donald Trump shared a photo of captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro aboard the USS Iwo Jima after strikes on Venezuela, on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.  (Donald Trump via Truth Social)

He tied the intervention to long-standing U.S. policy in the Western Hemisphere, invoking historical precedent.

“It’s about peace on Earth,” Trump said. “You gotta have peace, it’s our hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine was very important when it was done.”

Trump went on to criticize past presidents for failing to enforce that doctrine, arguing his administration has restored it as a guiding principle.

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RUBIO DEFENDS VENEZUELA OPERATION AFTER NBC QUESTIONS LACK OF CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL FOR MADURO CAPTURE

“And other presidents, a lot of them, they lost sight of it,” Trump added. “I didn’t. I didn’t lose sight. But it really is. It’s peace on Earth.”

Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration arrived at the West 30th Street Heliport for the arrival of captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in New York.  (Stefan Jeremiah/AP Photo)

Trump said the U.S. role in Venezuela will ultimately focus on rebuilding the country while caring for Venezuelans displaced by years of economic collapse.

He said that includes Venezuelans currently living in the U.S., many of whom he said were forced to flee.

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“We’re gonna cherish a country,” Trump said. “We’re going to take care of, more importantly, of the people, including Venezuelans that are living in our country that were forced to leave their country, and they’re going to be taken very good care of.”

Trump made clear the comments on Venezuela were part of a broader foreign policy outlook, using the gaggle to issue warnings about instability elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere and overseas. He suggested the U.S. is prepared to respond forcefully to threats he said could endanger American security interests.

Trump singled out Colombia, describing the country as a growing security concern and accusing its leadership of enabling large-scale drug trafficking into the U.S.

“Colombia’s very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump said.

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When asked whether that meant U.S. action, Trump replied, “It sounds good to me.”

Trump also addressed ongoing protests in Iran, warning that the U.S. is closely monitoring the situation and would respond if the Iranian government uses violence against demonstrators.

“We’re watching it very closely,” he said. “If they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”

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To ‘run’ Venezuela, Trump presses existing regime to kneel

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To ‘run’ Venezuela, Trump presses existing regime to kneel

Top officials in the Trump administration clarified their position on “running” Venezuela after seizing its president, Nicolás Maduro, over the weekend, pressuring the government that remains in power there Sunday to acquiesce to U.S. demands on oil access and drug enforcement, or else face further military action.

Their goal appears to be the establishment of a pliant vassal state in Caracas that keeps the current government — led by Maduro for more than a decade — largely in place, but finally defers to the whims of Washington after turning away from the United States for a quarter-century.

It leaves little room for the ascendance of Venezuela’s democratic opposition, which won the country’s last national election, according to the State Department, European capitals and international monitoring bodies.

President Trump and his top aides said they would try to work with Maduro’s handpicked vice president and current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, to run the country and its oil sector “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” offering no time frame for proposed elections.

Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem underscored the strategy in a series of interviews Sunday morning.

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“If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro,” Trump told the Atlantic magazine, referring to Rodríguez. “Rebuilding there and regime change, anything you want to call it, is better than what you have right now. Can’t get any worse.”

Rubio said that a U.S. naval quarantine of Venezuelan oil tankers would continue unless and until Rodríguez begins cooperating with the U.S. administration, referring to the blockade — and the lingering threat of additional military action from the fleet off Venezuela’s coast — as “leverage” over the remnants of Maduro’s government.

“That’s the sort of control the president is pointing to when he says that,” Rubio told CBS News. “We continue with that quarantine, and we expect to see that there will be changes — not just in the way the oil industry is run for the benefit of the people, but also so that they stop the drug trafficking.”

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told CNN that he had been in touch with the administration since the Saturday night operation that snatched Maduro and his wife from their bedroom, whisking them away to New York to face criminal charges.

Trump’s vow to “run” the country, Cotton said, “means the new leaders of Venezuela need to meet our demands.”

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“Delcy Rodríguez, and the other ministers in Venezuela, understand now what the U.S. military is capable of,” Cotton said, adding: “It is a fact that she and other indicted and sanctioned individuals are in Venezuela. They have control of the military and security forces. We have to deal with that fact. But that does not make them the legitimate leaders.”

“What we want is a future Venezuelan government that will be pro-American, that will contribute to stability, order and prosperity, not only in Venezuela but in our own backyard. That probably needs to include new elections,” Cotton said.

Whether Rodríguez will cooperate with the administration is an open question.

Trump said Saturday that she seemed amenable to making “Venezuela great again” in a conversation with Rubio. But the interim president delivered a speech hours later demanding Maduro’s return, and vowing that Venezuela would “never again be a colony of any empire.”

The developments have concerned senior figures in Venezuela’s democratic opposition, led by Maria Corina Machado, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Edmundo González Urrutia, the opposition candidate who won the 2024 presidential election that was ultimately stolen by Maduro.

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In his Saturday news conference, Trump dismissed Machado, saying that the revered opposition leader was “a very nice woman,” but “doesn’t have the respect within the country” to lead.

Elliott Abrams, Trump’s special envoy to Venezuela in his first term, said he was skeptical that Rodríguez — an acolyte of Hugo Chávez and avowed supporter of Chavismo throughout the Maduro era — would betray the cause.

“The insult to Machado was bizarre, unfair — and simply ignorant,” Abrams told The Times. “Who told him that there was no respect for her?”

Maduro was booked in New York and flown at night over the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he is in federal custody at a facility that has housed inmates including Sean “Diddy” Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell, Bernie Madoff and Sam Bankman-Fried.

He is expected to be arraigned on federal charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices as soon as Monday.

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Although few in Washington lamented Maduro’s removal, Democratic lawmakers criticized the operation as another act of ousting a foreign government by a Republican president that could have violated international law.

“The invasion of Venezuela has nothing to do with American security. Venezuela is not a security threat to the U.S.,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut. “This is about making Trump’s oil industry and Wall Street friends rich. Trump’s foreign policy — the Middle East, Russia, Venezuela — is fundamentally corrupt.”

In their Saturday news conference, and in subsequent interviews, Trump and Rubio said that targeting Venezuela was in part about reestablishing U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, reasserting the philosophy of President Monroe as China and Russia work to enhance their presence in the region. The Trump administration’s national security strategy, published last month, previewed a renewed focus on Latin America after the region faced neglect from Washington over decades.

Trump left unclear whether his military actions in the region would end in Caracas, a long-standing U.S. adversary, or whether he is willing to turn the U.S. armed forces on America’s allies.

In his interview with the Atlantic, Trump suggested that “individual countries” would be addressed on a case-by-case basis. On Saturday, he reiterated a threat to the president of Colombia, a major non-NATO ally, to “watch his ass,” over an ongoing dispute about Bogota’s cooperation on drug enforcement.

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On Sunday morning, the United Nations Security Council held an urgent meeting to discuss the legality of the U.S. operation in Venezuela.

It was not Russia or China — permanent members of the council and long-standing competitors — who called the session, nor France, whose government has questioned whether the operation violated international law, but Colombia, a nonpermanent member who joined the council less than a week ago.

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Dan Bongino officially leaves FBI deputy director role after less than a year, returns to ‘civilian life’

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Dan Bongino officially leaves FBI deputy director role after less than a year, returns to ‘civilian life’

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Dan Bongino returned to private life on Sunday after serving as deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for less than a year.

Bongino said on X that Saturday was his last day on the job before he would return to “civilian life.”

“It’s been an incredible year thanks to the leadership and decisiveness of President Trump. It was the honor of a lifetime to work with Director Patel, and to serve you, the American people. See you on the other side,” he wrote.

The former FBI deputy director announced in mid-December that he would be leaving his role at the bureau at the start of the new year.

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BONDI, PATEL TAP MISSOURI AG AS ADDITIONAL FBI CO-DEPUTY DIRECTOR ALONGSIDE BONGINO

Dan Bongino speaks with FBI Director Kash Patel as they attend the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City on Sept. 11, 2025. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump previously praised Bongino, who assumed office in March, for his work at the FBI.

“Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump told reporters.

FBI DIRECTOR, TOP DOJ OFFICIAL RESPOND TO ‘FAILING’ NY TIMES ARTICLE CLAIMING ‘DISDAIN’ FOR EACH OTHER

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“After his swearing-in ceremony as FBI Deputy Director, Dan Bongino paid his respects at the Wall of Honor, honoring the brave members of the #FBI who made the ultimate sacrifice and reflecting on the legacy of those who paved the way in the pursuit of justice and security,” the FBI said in a post on X. (@FBI on X)

Bongino spoke publicly about the personal toll of the job during a May appearance on “Fox & Friends,” saying he had sacrificed a lot to take the role.

“I gave up everything for this,” he said, citing the long hours both he and FBI Director Kash Patel work.

“I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., by myself, divorced from my wife — not divorced, but I mean separated — and it’s hard. I mean, we love each other, and it’s hard to be apart,” he added.

The FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover headquarters building in Washington on Nov. 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)

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Bongino’s departure leaves Andrew Bailey, who was appointed co-deputy director in September 2025, as the bureau’s other deputy director.

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