For more than 100 years, the role of FBI deputy director has been filled by a career agent with previous bureau experience and an insider's understanding of day-to-day operations of federal law enforcement. As the FBI's own website puts it, the deputy director "oversees all FBI domestic and international investigative and intelligence activities."
In a break with tradition, the Trump administration instead tapped Dan Bongino, a former U.S. Secret Service agent turned pro-Trump influencer.
For the last several years Bongino has ranted against the FBI on his podcast, saying it should be "disbanded immediately" and calling agents "thugs." Bongino will now help run federal law enforcement as the number two official at the FBI, behind Director Kash Patel.
Patel himself has expressed a number of conspiratorial and hard-right views and is the first FBI director to win confirmation with the support of only one political party.
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