Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino admitted on Tuesday to making up false information about his day to weed out the “snakes” at the bureau. “It happened a couple times where they’d say, ‘Oh, you can trust John Smith.’ And you trust John Smith, and then a week later you see a leak in the media and you’d be like, ‘I’m pretty sure that came from John Smith.’ So, I would start, like, messing with people,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on his podcast.
Bongino, who left the FBI in January following speculation of a falling out with now ex-Attorney General Pam Bondi, claimed there were two sides of the bureau. He called one the “good FBI,” which investigated white-collar and violent crimes, and the other, he said, was “populated” with “snakes,” but quipped that the term was too “nice.”
“You’re asking someone for advice, you’ve only been there a couple weeks, and you don’t know if that person is part of the good FBI or the bad FBI,” Bongino said, later adding that “it wasn’t always obvious which FBI they were in.”
Bongino claimed it took him and FBI Director Kash Patel time to figure out which agents were on the “good” or “bad” side of the bureau, noting that they sometimes had outside help, but they “would get it wrong too.”
Bongino told Hannity he began “messing with people” within the bureau, and recalled one time where he set somebody up about where he was going. “I would do these things like I told this — a report leaked out in the media one day. I knew exactly where it came from because I made it up. It was a total lie. It was just an innocuous story,” Bongino said. He told Hannity that he eventually confronted the alleged leaker. “So, it was like we would play this — we had to play this little game,” Bongino said.
Bongino, much like some other officials nominated by President Donald Trump, faced brutal criticism before leaving his position. A 115-page bombshell report compiled by anonymous internal sources last year described the former deputy director as “something of a clown” and slammed him and Patel for their “arrogance.”
Bongino’s bold claim to flush out the leaker comes amid scrutiny over the FBI’s leadership under Patel, who has been embroiled in controversy over his reported behavior. Patel faced backlash for his FBI jet use, including flying to the Winter Olympics where he was captured on video chugging beer with Team USA’s men’s hockey. More recently, a report by the Atlantic accused Patel of “excessive drinking and unexplained absences,” allegations he filed a $250 million lawsuit over and denied.
