Politics
Before Ascending to Top Tier of F.B.I., Bongino Fueled Right-Wing Disbelief
On a recent episode of his wildly popular podcast, the right-wing provocateur Dan Bongino asserted that he would soon be able to show that pipe bombs found near the Capitol the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were “an inside job” and that “the F.B.I. knows who this person is.”
It is a baseless theory that has spread among the right; the F.B.I. has, in fact, been unable to identify a suspect, despite four years of effort and a $500,000 reward. Nevertheless, Mr. Bongino suggested with furious certainty that the incoming F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, would soon reveal the answer.
“We’re in charge now,” he whispered excitedly.
His conspiratorial-minded views, characteristic of his show, offer a remarkably vivid illustration of his likely approach when he takes over the No. 2 job at the F.B.I. As deputy director, he will effectively serve as the chief operating officer of the premier U.S. law enforcement agency, overseeing the most sensitive cases in the nation. The role will give him access to vast amounts of highly sensitive intelligence, as well as the daily flotsam of rumor, speculation and false accusations that F.B.I. agents receive from informants and the public.
Still, as he talked about his new post on Monday, Mr. Bongino, a failed political candidate who struck gold as a combative, perpetually online Trump supporter, was emotional as he acknowledged that joining the highest echelons of the bureau would require shifting tack.
“We play different roles in our life and each one requires a different skill set,” he said, insisting that he was “cleareyed” about the vision that Mr. Trump, Mr. Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi have for the F.B.I. “I am going to do my best to implement that vision.”
Days earlier, Mr. Bongino offered a glimpse of that vision, playing a clip of the senior White House adviser Stephen Miller declaring, “The existential threat to democracy is the unelected bureaucracy.”
Americans, Mr. Miller said, “vote for radical F.B.I. reform and F.B.I. agents say they don’t want to change.” Mr. Miller’s point was clear: Mr. Trump will succeed in radically changing the F.B.I.
Mr. Bongino has long shouted for such change at the bureau.
He has called for the shutdown of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which handles terrorism and espionage cases. His skepticism dates to an error-laden application by the F.B.I. in seeking to surveil a former Trump campaign policy adviser in 2016 and 2017 with ties to Russia. He has also called for the firing of all F.B.I. agents involved in a court-approved search of Mr. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
“What the F.B.I. did to Donald Trump, it wasn’t law enforcement, it was tyranny,” he declared in 2022.
The selection of Mr. Bongino, 50, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent, represents a sharp break from the F.B.I.’s history given his relative lack of experience at the agency. For more than 100 years, the second-in-command has been a veteran special agent from within the bureau, someone well versed in its inner workings.
Mr. Bongino’s rise in the world of conservative news media was fueled by what critics describe as a penchant for spreading misinformation — about the pandemic, the 2020 election and the F.B.I.
In 2022, he was banned by YouTube for repeatedly violating the platform’s rules about coronavirus misinformation, including for a video that claimed that masks were useless.
Mr. Bongino started his podcast in 2015, and worked at Fox News and the National Rifle Association’s now defunct streaming service, but it was not until the 2020 election that he ascended to the upper ranks of right-wing punditry.
That same year, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which led to surgery and chemotherapy.
He quickly became one of the loudest voices casting doubt on Joseph R. Biden’s victory.
When Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, appeared on Mr. Bongino’s show in November 2020, he made an outlandish claim, asserting that voting software from Dominion Voting Systems was secretly being misused.
“We’re basically having our votes counted by Venezuelans,” Mr. Giuliani declared.
“That’s insane,” Mr. Bongino replied. Despite or perhaps because of such baseless claims, Mr. Bongino’s popularity soared as his podcasts and online posts were an insistent drumbeat of doubt about the election results.
(Separately, Dominion, subject to a flood of election misinformation, filed a lawsuit against Fox News, accusing it of spreading harmful conspiracies. The network reached a $787.5 million settlement with the company.)
Last week, Mr. Bongino raged about a number of topics, offering his listeners advice about how to escape if a would-be murderer tried to choke them to death.
He also reprised a pet topic — the F.B.I. investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign conspired with Russia in its efforts to influence the presidential election.
In his shows and in a book he wrote called “Spygate,” Mr. Bongino has maintained, like Mr. Trump, that the entire investigation was a pretext to harm Mr. Trump’s political career.
“I don’t want to move on” from that case, Mr. Bongino insisted last week. “I want to find out what happened so it can never happen again.”
On Monday, he assured his audience that he was not quite done offering his thoughts on politics, the government and the culture wars; he plans to keep podcasting this week.
President Trump vowed political payback last year when Republican state lawmakers in Indiana defied him on redistricting, refusing to draw new congressional maps to help the party in the midterms.
He delivered on that threat.
On Tuesday, Republican primary voters backed at least five of the seven challengers whom Mr. Trump endorsed over incumbent state senators, according to The Associated Press. One incumbent was re-elected, and one race was too close to call.
Even as the president’s poll numbers sag, the results in Indiana showed his enduring sway over Republican primary voters and his continuing ability to exact political revenge. Here is what we learned on Tuesday:
Trump still dominates the conversation.
Whether voters were glad to hear from him or wished he had stayed out of a statehouse election, Mr. Trump’s involvement loomed over the campaign.
The challengers backed by the president included his photo on their campaign literature and posted social media photos of themselves at the White House. Some of the incumbents took pains to explain points of agreement with Mr. Trump, even as the president attacked them on social media.
“Tonight was a lesson to Republican lawmakers throughout the nation,” said Senator Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican who backed the challengers. “There are consequences for not representing your voters.”
In Columbus, Ind., south of Indianapolis, Brenda Forgey said the president’s endorsement proved persuasive.
“We are Republicans through and through, and if he endorses anyone, we are behind them,” Ms. Forgey said.
But that same endorsement drove James Vogel, another Columbus voter, to support the incumbent.
“He is ruling by chaos,” Mr. Vogel said of the president. “Every day, every week, it is something new.”
Trump succeeded in his first of several attempts to oust Republicans who defy him.
The result was a stunning rebuke for independent-minded Republicans and a warning to officials elsewhere in the country who have crossed Mr. Trump, the undisputed leader of the Republican Party.
“Donald Trump maintains his singular ability to catapult candidates from obscurity to Congress or, in this case, the Indiana Statehouse,” said Pete Seat, an Indiana-based veteran of the George W. Bush White House. “The organizational heft, the messaging acumen and the level of coordination required to pull off this feat cannot be — and should not be — underestimated.”
The results are surely cause for concern for two Republicans who have bucked Mr. Trump in the past and are now facing primary opponents backed by the president: Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
Like the newly deposed Indiana Republicans, Mr. Massie and Mr. Cassidy have long histories with their constituents and are known quantities locally. But Tuesday proved once again that in a Republican primary, Mr. Trump’s desires often outweigh whatever local good will candidates have built up.
Republican voters were split on Trump.
Indiana voters supported Mr. Trump by large margins in the last three presidential elections. Even still, and even as his preferred candidates racked up victories, Republicans voiced mixed reviews of his second term and were divided about the importance of his endorsement.
“He is doing what he is supposed to,” Athena Purtlebaugh said after she voted for the president’s candidate in Taylorsville, Ind. “Yes, he is coarse sometimes and I cringe, but he is doing the right things.”
But in Tipton, Ind., Jeff Crouch said that “he didn’t want to vote for anybody that was endorsed by President Trump.”
Mr. Crouch, a Republican, said he had voted for Mr. Trump previously, but not in 2024. He described his impression of the president’s second term as “somewhere between terrible and really terrible.”
The fight for the Indiana G.O.P. continues.
Indiana Republicans have amassed near-total control of the state over the last 20 years. But the fight over redistricting brought long-simmering fissures into the open.
The divide is not exactly between moderates and conservatives, but more between the party establishment and an ascendant faction that has modeled its style after the president’s.
On the one side, the state’s governor, lieutenant governor and many members of the congressional delegation lined up behind Mr. Trump.
On the other, former Gov. Mitch Daniels, who helped usher in Indiana’s era of Republican dominance, became a leading voice against redistricting. His successor as governor, former Vice President Mike Pence, mostly avoided the redistricting debate, but endorsed one of the incumbents seeking re-election.
Indiana’s two Democratic congressmen could face inhospitable new maps.
With so many Trump-backed challengers ousting incumbents who had voted against redistricting, the path appears clearer for drawing new maps before the 2028 elections.
Because Republicans hold durable majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature, the results from Tuesday’s State Senate primaries made it more likely there would be support for a G.O.P.-friendly redistricting next year.
It remains unclear how aggressive the new class of Indiana Republicans in the State Senate will be. Democrats hold seats based in Indianapolis, the state capital and largest city, and in the suburban Chicago communities of Northwest Indiana.
Kim Bellware, Robert Chiarito, Amy Lynch and Kevin Williams contributed reporting from Indiana.
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President Donald Trump marked Cinco de Mayo on Tuesday with a new Truth Social post featuring a stylized “NICE” graphic — a play on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
The post adds to a string of Cinco de Mayo messages from Trump that have repeatedly drawn attention online, including his widely shared 2016 taco bowl post that resurfaces nearly every year around the holiday.
Trump has frequently used the holiday to share posts blending humor, politics and immigration messaging; and had already publicly embraced the “NICE” branding concept ahead of Tuesday’s post.
The image shared Tuesday featured an eagle-and-shield design above the word “NICE,” styled similarly to federal law enforcement branding and appearing to reference ICE.
TRUMP VOWS NOT TO HELP BLUE CITIES WITH RIOTS, INSTRUCTS ICE AND BORDER PATROL TO PROTECT FEDERAL PROPERTY
A stylized graphic reading “NICE,” a reference to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, features an eagle and shield design in an image shared by President Donald Trump on Cinco de Mayo. (@realDonaldTrump via X)
Trump endorsed the idea of rebranding ICE as “NICE” in a late April Truth Social post, writing: “GREAT IDEA!!! DO IT.”
The phrase originated from a social media suggestion that Trump later amplified online.
The latest post also brought renewed attention to Trump’s most recognizable Cinco de Mayo moment.
HERE ARE 5 OF GUY FIERI’S FAVORITE TACO SPOTS ACROSS AMERICA AHEAD OF CINCO DE MAYO
President Donald Trump poses with a taco bowl at Trump Tower in a Cinco de Mayo post shared in 2016. (@realDonaldTrump via X)
In 2016, then-candidate Trump posted a photo of himself eating a taco bowl at Trump Tower alongside the caption: “Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics!”
The post quickly went viral and has continued resurfacing online in the years since.
The image showed Trump seated at a desk with a taco bowl in front of him, giving a thumbs up as he posed for the camera.
DNC TACO TRUCK STUNT TROLLING TRUMP BACKFIRES ON SOCIAL MEDIA WITH VANCE, GOP: ‘CAN’T FIX STUPID’
The emblem of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears on a smartphone screen with the U.S. flag displayed on a laptop screen in Athens, Greece, on Feb. 3, 2026. (Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto)
Last year, Trump reshared the taco bowl post and wrote: “This was so wonderful, 9 years ago today!”
The post continues to go viral online as users revisit the original taco bowl image each year on the holiday.
One user posted an image of the president’s original 2016 taco bowl post, writing, “Cinco de Trumpo.”
Another commenter wrote, “such a classic,” and another quipped, “maybe the greatest tweet of all time.”
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Trump’s original taco bowl post remains one of the most recognizable Cinco de Mayo moments of the social media era.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
SACRAMENTO — State elections officials warned voters Tuesday to send their mail-in ballots in early after changes at the U.S. Postal Service that have led to slower mail service throughout California.
Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber said vote-by-mail ballots should be put in the mail at least a week before the June 2 election.
The officials also cast skepticism about social media posts that urge Democrats to vote “late” and to rally around one candidate in order to ensure a Republican doesn’t win. The posts are similar in wording and have spread on Facebook in the last week.
Bonta said the posts, which were brought up by The Times at a news conference in Sacramento, could be “misinformation” or “disinformation” and “potentially unlawful.”
“Get your ballot in the mail at least a week early,” he said. “You want to make sure your vote is counted. And the misinformation that you’re referencing is the misinformation we’re trying to combat.”
Voters using the postal service to mail their ballot within a week of the election should go inside the post office and ask that their ballot be postmarked, or can drop off their ballot at a secure voter box, officials said.
The new guidance comes after sweeping changes made by the Postal Service last year that has reduced the number of trips to pick up mail at post offices in mostly rural areas in the country, including California.
A Times analysis of last year’s November special election found that there was a significantly higher number of mail-in ballots that arrived too late to be counted compared with the 2024 election.
Rural counties saw some of the biggest increase in rejected ballots because they came in too late, The Times found.
The changes to the Postal Service are nationwide, but are particularly relevant in California because the vast majority of people vote in the state using mail-in ballots.
Voters who mail a ballot on election day, or even two days before, may not see their vote counted because it will arrive too late, Bonta told reporters.
“You want your vote to be counted, I want your vote to be counted,” Bonta said. “If you vote earlier, you maximize that possibility that it will.”
Vote-by-mail ballots are considered late if they are not postmarked on or ahead of election day or if the postmarked ballots do not arrive within seven days of the election.
Weber’s office also said it would look into a recent trend of social posts that urge California Democrats to “vote late” in the June 2 election.
The posts, which have appeared on Facebook and Instagram, are similar in wording, and tell Democrats to hold off from voting early to ensure that two Republican don’t make the two top spots, and to rally around one Democrat.
California’s primary election system allows the two candidates who received the most votes to advance to the November election, regardless of party.
With many Democrats crowding the ballot this year, some Democratic leaders have expressed concern fear that two Republicans — businessman Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — will take the top two spots because Democratic voters will be splintered among the party’s top seven candidates.
The validity of the social media posts are under scrutiny.
One post on Facebook last week, for instance, purports to be written by historian Heather Cox Richardson. The post warned voters not to vote until after all the debates in California have concluded and the front-runner is clear.
Richardson told The Times that she’s not connected to the post. “I didn’t write it and we can’t figure out who did,” she said in an email. “I haven’t — and won’t — take any position in a primary.”
The last statewide election in California was closely watched after the U.S. Department of Justice said would monitor polling sites in some California counties after a request by California Republican Party officials.
However, the election proceeded without any incident.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday sent a letter to elections officials in the state’s 58 counties that highlighted recent legislation mandating that California ballots be counted within 13 days, instead of 30 days. Newsom thanked the elections staff for their work and urged a speedy vote count.
“We must acknowledge that the longer the voting count takes,” Newsom wrote, “the more mis- and disinformation spreads.”
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