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secret service
Patel Taps Far-Right Misinformation Peddler Dan Bongino for Deputy FBI Director
"I know this feels like a bad dream," said one Democratic senator. "It isn't."
Feb 24, 2025
In a move cheered by the MAGA faithful but derided by critics, FBI Director Kash Patel picked Dan Bongino—a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned Fox News and podcast host known for spreading right-wing conspiracy theories—as the agency's deputy director.
In what he called "great news for Law Enforcement and American Justice," U.S. President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social site to announce Patel's selection of Bongino for the number two FBI post.
On Monday, Bongino said in a statement: "My career has always been about service. I'm here to work. I'm here to lead. And I'm here to ensure that America's law enforcement institutions uphold the values and integrity they were built upon."
Patel congratulated Bongino, whom he called a "warrior."
"With Pam Bondi as our new attorney general, we are assembling a team focused on restoring public trust, upholding the rule of law, and ensuring justice is served," Patel said on Monday.
The Bulwarkreported Monday that the FBI Agents Association issued a memo implying that Patel broke a commitment he made to appoint "an on-board, active special agent" as deputy director, "as has been the case for 117 years."
Critics lambasted Patel's pick, with progressive podcast host David Paskman
writing on the Bluesky social media site, "We're so screwed."
Adam Goldman and Devlin Barrett wrote in The New York Times: "The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the bureau's history. It is also all but certain to prompt concerns about how the men, who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics, will run an agency typically insulated from White House interference."
Some critics expressed fears that Trump will use Patel and Bongino to attack political opponents.
Others called Bongino a "grifter."
Bongino worked as a New York police officer from 1995-99 and as a Secret Service agent from 1999-2011, leaving the agency to run for U.S. Senate—the first of three unsuccessful political campaigns.
After failing in politics, Bongino became a popular conspiracy theorist on social media and right-wing talk radio. In addition to hosting his own Fox News program from 2021-23 and a podcast with millions of listeners, he has frequently appeared on Alex Jones' Infowars fake news program. He also hosted a show on the National Rifle Association's defunct online video channel.
Bongino is the author of more than half a dozen books, some of them promoting conspiracy theories about the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. He quickly became one of the most strident purveyors of Trump's "Big Lie" that the 2020 election was stolen by the so-called "deep state" and Democrats.
Since then, Bongino has used his platforms to amplify conspiracy theories and lies about topics including the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection and the Covid-19 pandemic. He was banned from both YouTube and Google's ad service for spreading pandemic-related misinformation. In 2020, The New York Times included him on its list of "misinformation superspreaders."
At times, Bongino seemed to relish his notoriety, once explaining that "my entire life right now is about owning the libs."
Last year, the purportedly non-political appointee ripped "scumbag commie libs," the "biggest pussies I've ever seen," in a vague threat posted on Elon Musk's social media site X.
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Secret Service Director Resigns After Trump Assassination Attempt
Kimberly Cheatle said in an email to colleagues that the agency "fell short" of its mission to protect U.S. leaders.
Jul 23, 2024
United States Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned Tuesday following the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump at a Pennsylvania campaign rally and intense bipartisan grilling by members of a congressional committee.
The New York Timesreported that Cheatle—who led the Secret Service since September 2022—said in an internal email that the agency "fell short" of its mission to protect Trump, the Republican presidential nominee who was shot in the ear while speaking at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
"In light of recent events, it is with a heavy heart that I have made the difficult decision to step down as your director," Cheatle wrote.
Calls for Cheatle's resignation mounted following her Monday testimony before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, during which she acknowledged that "we failed" in "the Secret Service's solemn mission... to protect our nation's leaders."
Following the hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the committee, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the ranking member, issued a joint letter accusing Cheatle of failing "to provide answers to basic questions regarding that stunning operational failure" and calling on her to resign "as a first step to allowing new leadership to swiftly address this crisis and rebuild the trust of a truly concerned Congress and the American people."
In her resignation email, Cheatle told colleagues, "I do not want my calls for resignation to be a distraction from the great work each and every one of you do towards our vital mission."
Responding to Cheatle's resignation, Raskin said that "yesterday's Oversight Committee hearing identified two urgent priorities in the wake of the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump and the accompanying mass shooting. The first was the need for Director Cheatle to step down... We accomplished that today."
"The other urgent need was to ban assault weapons to protect the rest of us from mass shootings like the one that took place in Butler," he added. "As I made clear during yesterday's hearing, a weapon that can be used to commit a mass shooting at an event under the full protection of the Secret Service and state and local police is a danger to schoolchildren; Walmart shoppers; and congregants in church, synagogue, and mosque services."
Twenty-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks used a legally purchased AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to shoot Trump before he was killed by a Secret Service sniper. A rally attendee, Corey Comperatore, was fatally shot, and two other men were seriously injured by gunfire.
"As a weapon of war, the AR-15 has no legitimate place in our society," Raskin argued. "Congress must act now."
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'Violence Has No Place in American Life.' Except, Like, Everywhere You Look
A few thoughts on how the assassination attempt on Trump unleashed an orgy of Democratic platitudes.
Jul 16, 2024
The U.S. political system runs on the fuel of euphemism—the ability to conceal nefarious aspirations beneath the facade of idealistic slogans. Consider the U.S. Department of Corporate Violence (USDOCV) which, oddly, we have renamed the U.S. Department of Defense (USDOD). I use the word, renamed rather loosely, for The Department of Corporate Violence always required a pseudonym.
The public never became privy to the relationship between corporate greed and U.S. military adventure—at least not without some poking around beneath the surface. President Dwight Eisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex—an informal term that comes precariously close to letting the secret out of the bag.
Until 1949, the federal agency responsible for the U.S. military was simply called The Department of War—a rather nondescript, generic title that tells us nothing about intent. But with the advent of the Cold War and the new mandate to unleash military might against leftist regimes in every corner of the globe, our military needed a brand new identity. In 1949, just in time for decades of war in Southeast Asia, we decided to call our military The Department of Defense. This made it clear that bombing, defoliating and reducing civilian populations to ash thousands of miles from U.S. borders—in Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia—were acts of "defense." The word defense had to go through conceptual contortions to befuddle the U.S. masses, but that is the nature of euphemistic language.
Why do we hear from politicians and media that they are shocked and horrified that someone took a shot at Donald Trump?
Many have ventured to assert that the U.S. is the most violent, militaristic nation in human history, both in terms of our astronomical military budget and our almost subliminal bombardment with pro-military, pro-police propaganda. It is easier in the U.S. to procure a firearm than it is to get a decent haircut or a high quality slice of pizza, and we shoot one another with such casual predictability that a mass shooting passes out of the news cycle faster than a celebrity divorce.
So why do we hear from politicians and media that they are shocked and horrified that someone took a shot at Donald Trump? We have been told, in the last few days, that "violence has no place in American life." It can't be just the usual embarrassment that U.S. leaders have about their blood-soaked deeds. I can count at least six Democrats who said the exact same lin—Biden, Obama, Schumer and three others whose names I have forgotten. Maybe it's a hundred Democrats who said this. We all lose track. "Violence has no place in American life."
Say what? Violence has such an enormous role in American existence that our government spends $3.1 billion annually to protect politicians from the armed-to-the-teeth citizens who despise them. That is right—the Secret Service budget is almost a third of the money allotted to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA, that Trump threatens to dismantle entirely, is responsible for putting up some sort of feeble resistance to the sixth extinction.
It is easier in the U.S. to procure a firearm than it is to get a decent haircut or a high quality slice of pizza, and we shoot one another with such casual predictability that a mass shooting passes out of the news cycle faster than a celebrity divorce.
Apparently, the $3.1 billion needed to protect our elected leaders from the AR-15 wielding hordes that dream of blowing their brains out is not enough. All it took was one distracted agent with his eyes on his Smart Phone—watching that Post Malone and Morgan Wallen video on YouTube, perhaps—and now the Secret Service budget might need more of your tax money than we use to keep a small percentage of our leaking neurotoxins away from your drinking water.
Out of slavish respect for our wounded former guy who takes offense at this point, the Democrats and the press are cautiously avoiding the elephant in the room: unregulated access to military grade weapons. These same Democrats are also falling all over themselves to proclaim their agonized grief over the shooting. After all, the rhetorical excesses—comparing Trump to Hitler just because Julius Streicher's words pour out of Trump's throat—was bound to encourage violence in an otherwise peace-loving country.
I have always suspected that the Republicans control the American narrative and the Democrats lip sync to the latest MAGA tunes. That is why Biden initiated an almost exact replica of MAGA's murderous immigration plans. The Democrats will crawl on their knees to prove that they have no ill intent toward Trump. Expect to hear many confessions of just how joyful they are about Trump's survival.
The issue is not to tamp down the rhetorical bile and show mutual respect. It is way too fucking late for that. We have two genocidal parties that both cater to corporations and engage in nasty political theater to amuse their bases, and we also have a pissed off, disempowered populace beleaguered by neurotoxins, and heavily armed. Too many Democrats, and even a few Republicans, are beseeching us to take the discourse "down a notch." That is like telling a heroin addict, shaking with cravings, to "just say no."
Nothing brings America together like a bipartisan orgy of military spending.
The flash flood of Democratic platitudes on behalf of civility and the parallel gushers of concern for Trump's welfare are a collective prostration to MAGA narratives. The Democrats are beside themselves with guilt for calling Trump a fascist or a Nazi wannabe. The Republicans accuse the Democrats of fomenting violence and the Democrats swear allegiance to the principles of Gandhi. In truth, violence and militarism are the true balm to heal our divided nation. Both parties love cops, guns and fighter planes. Nothing brings America together like a bipartisan orgy of military spending.
If you take away political drama, our entire system of governance would be naked and ashamed. The answer is to just spend more on Secret Service protection. Put an entire army battalion phalanx around Trump—and Biden too. The Secret Service budget is already the size of the entire NBA payroll. But we always have unlimited funding for police and military, so it should not be a problem. We never have enough money in America for housing, medical care, mental health or environmental cleanup, but a united Republican/Democratic lovefest can conjure money out of your taxes for enough nuclear warheads to obliterate the Milky Way.
As the U.S. descends into fascism there will be a lot of guns and police around. We better get used to it.
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