Dan Bongino announced on December 17, 2025, that he will step down as the FBI’s deputy director in January 2026, a move that will end a brief but consequential stint inside the nation’s most politicized law enforcement agency. The news confirms what many of us predicted: when a principled conservative leaves the comforts of private life to clean up Washington, the swamp pushes back hard.
President Trump tapped Bongino for the No. 2 role earlier in 2025, an unconventional choice that outraged the careerist class but thrilled working Americans tired of the status quo. Bongino came from the ranks of law enforcement and conservative media, not from the inside of an agency that had been captured by left-wing elites, and that outsider perspective was precisely why patriots supported him.
His tenure was turbulent because he didn’t play by the usual Washington rules; he challenged sloppy cover-ups and pushed to bring transparency to high-profile scandals like the Jeffrey Epstein files and the Jan. 6 pipe-bomb questions. Predictably, the establishment buried inconvenient findings and pounced on any misstep, even forcing Bongino to walk back some public conjectures after being handed the actual files. Conservatives shouldn’t mistake that walk-back for weakness — it was the behavior of a man trying to do the job by the facts once he had them, not by late-night show headlines.
The president, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Attorney General Pam Bondi offered public praise when Bongino signaled his departure, and Trump even suggested Bongino might want to return to his podcasting career. That praise shows two things: the administration recognizes what a tough fight Bongino took on, and it understands that the swamp will always prefer career insiders to fighting outsiders.
Make no mistake, the internal clashes that followed Bongino’s arrival — including friction with Justice Department officials and a bureau rank-and-file that prefers the old way of doing things — were orchestrated by those who fear accountability. The move by the FBI and DOJ earlier this year to limit disclosure on Epstein-related material and the subsequent personnel reshuffles exposed how resistant the system is to reform.
Patriots should applaud Bongino for answering the call to serve and for exposing the rot where he could; it takes guts to leave a lucrative platform and step into the belly of the beast. The media will crow about controversies and cast his departure as a failure, but conservatives know better — real reformers are always demonized by the institutions they threaten. His sacrifice was for the cause of law, order, and accountability, not for personal glory.
This moment must not be an excuse for retreat. If anything, Bongino’s exit should galvanize grassroots conservatives to double down, demand real oversight, and push for leaders who will keep the pressure on a hostile bureaucracy. The fight to restore the FBI to its mission of protecting the American people and not policing politics is far from over.
Expect to see Bongino back in the conservative media world where he can keep exposing corruption and rallying voters; his departure in January 2026 is a pause in the fight, not the end. Hardworking Americans should honor his service, learn from what happened, and keep fighting to ensure Washington serves the people, not the permanent political class.
