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Conservative podcaster and conspiracy theorist-turned-FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has reportedly sent out a call for a team of agents within the agency to serve as his personal bodyguards. That is a break from how the No. 2 person at the FBI has been protected in the past and is ironic considering Bongino’s tough guy image and the attacks he has leveled against—me (and others).
NBC News reported on Tuesday that a message known internally as a canvass was sent out to agents asking them to temporarily serve on Bongino’s protective detail. The outlet noted that a full-time detail could mean as many as 20 agents protecting the man who once promoted the debunked QAnon conspiracy theory.
Bongino’s predecessor, Paul Abbate, had only one agent assigned to protect him and Abbate carried a service weapon as well. NBC reports that former FBI officials told them that Bongino has declined to go through the gun qualification process and instead wants a full taxpayer-financed detail.
“Of course he could carry—this is ridiculous,” former senior FBI official Frank Figliuzzi told NBC. “The question is, what is the actual risk and threat here, or does he just want a detail? This is taxpayer money we’re talking about.”
Bongino is demanding protection at the same time President Donald Trump has ordered an end to security details protecting the district attorney for Manhattan and New York state’s attorney general—as revenge for prosecuting Trump’s crimes.
Bongino formerly served as a Secret Service agent before several failed congressional runs, then pivoted to become a conservative radio host and podcaster. He was positioned to take over as a leading right-wing broadcaster after bigoted host Rush Limbaugh died in 2021, but that never materialized.
Before Trump picked him to be one of the top law enforcement officials in the United States, however, Bongino served a short stint at NRA News (which no longer exists). That was where he crossed paths with me.
As a correspondent for the American Independent, I wrote a story in 2018 taking NRA News to task for complaining on-air that a man who heroically stopped a Waffle House shooting could have handled the situation better if he was armed.
This criticism made Bongino mad. The right-wing extremist has become quite infamous for frequently melting down—and he did not disappoint.
Appearing with co-host Grant Stinchfield, Bongino rocked back and forth in his chair and hurled invective at me, a person who writes for a living.
“You’re human filth,” Bongino spat. “I know Oliver Willis. He’s a liar, he’s a fraud, he’s a disgusting, basement-dwelling human being. I think mommy pays his cable bill, I’m not sure,” he said.
To be clear, I’ve spent over 20 years researching and reporting on conservative media and Republicans. Like any normal person I have made mistakes and corrections have been issued in those cases—but unlike Bongino, I have never pushed absurd conspiracy theories. Certainly nothing that would have gotten me banned from outlets like YouTube, which banned Bongino for pushing misinformation in 2022.
I also never lived in a basement owned by my beloved mother, who passed away a few years before this lunacy was aired to the NRA’s fans.
Bongino also accused me of sitting “with hot cocoa all day” and called me “Big Ol,” because I enjoy more treats than I should. I do like hot cocoa, so Bongino is capable of telling the truth from time to time.
The capper to Bongino’s nearly two-minute rant was referring to me as a “straight up monstah,” which would probably be news to anyone who has ever known me—particularly the very small dog who sits on my shoulder every day as I write stories for Daily Kos.
Bongino’s rant about me, along with his other public shouting sessions—including an expletive-riddled tirade during a call with a reporter in 2016—are meant to portray him as a rough-and-tumble tough guy.
But his decision to use taxpayer dollars to reportedly hide behind a coterie of FBI agents would seem to call Bongino’s true toughness into question.
What the episode has highlighted, yet again, is that Trump is a poor judge of character.
Because Bongino furthered pro-Trump conspiracies and rhetoric attacking his political adversaries, he has been given a plum assignment at the FBI. Bongino’s new job has little to do with his experience in law enforcement and is all about how he has spent years mugging on camera and behind a microphone in service of Trump and the conservative movement.
Bongino’s boss, FBI Director Kash Patel, also came into his position because he is a Trump fanboy, even going so far as to write fan fiction disguised as children’s books praising Trump. Under Patel and Bongino, the agency responsible for protecting millions of Americans is a safe haven that allows Trump superfans to hide behind teams of skilled agents and spend lavishly on themselves—thanks to the taxpayers’ dime.
Maybe Kash and Dan can even sip some cocoa together in one of their big, secure offices.
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