Weldon L. Kennedy had been with the FBI for 32 years, notably overseeing the investigations into the deadly Oklahoma City bombings, when former FBI Director Louis J. Freeh named him deputy director in 1995. 

John S. Pistole was a 21-year veteran when Robert Mueller deputized him in 2004. Mark Bowdich had 23 years on the job when he replaced Andrew McCabe in 2018, while Mr. McCabe, who was forced out by President Trump for his role in the Russiagate investigation, had 19 years when James B. Comey – who would also be fired by Trump – tabbed him for the gig in 2016.

Daniel Bongino, former NYPD cop, Secret Service Agent, and conservative podcaster with a vast following, had never worked a day at the bureau when President Trump tapped him as newly-installed Director Kash Patel’s top deputy. 

Mr. Trump announced Mr. Bongino’s new role late Sunday night on Truth Social, praising his “incredible love and passion for our Country.” 

In doing so, Mr. Trump had given Mr. Bongino the rare distinction of being the least experienced, and arguably the most disparaging, deputy director in the bureau’s 117-year history. 

If putting Mssrs. Patel and Bongino at the top of the FBI was Mr. Trump’s way of expressing his distaste for the FBI’s role in the Mar-a-Lago and Russia investigations, not to mention its arrests of Trump-supporting January 6 protesters, he has certainly succeeded. Mr. Trump’s decisions left many former FBI agents speechless, even those who have been highly critical of the bureau’s direction. 

Traditionally, the deputy director serves as a ballast to the FBI Director, where the former’s intimate knowledge of the bureau balances the worst impulses and relative inexperience of the latter. Unlike the FBI director, the deputy director’s job does not require Senate confirmation and is not usually a presidential appointment.

Indeed, Mr. Trump fired Mr. McCabe two days before his 50th birthday so that Mr. McCabe, who had more than 20 years of service, would not qualify for an enhanced pension due longtime federal employees (Mr. McCabe sued and eventually won back the lost benefits).

The one-two punch of Mssrs. Patel and Bongino represent the first time in the bureau’s history where one’s sworn fealty to a president is counterbalanced by the other’s lifelong mission to sock it to the libs.  

“Director Patel is a political appointee and was selected to reform some obvious mistakes committed by and maladies inherent in our current agency. But that is exactly why the right person for the deputy director position must understand, intrinsically, the bureau’s mission and its investigators and professional support staff,” said James A. Gagliano, retired supervisory special agent and board member of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund. 

While Mr. Bongino has the law enforcement “chops,” he may lack “the insight or credibility due to not having been ‘one of us,’” said Mr. Gagliano.

Mr. Bongino has used his platform, “The Dan Bongino Show”, a hugely influential top-10 podcast, to echo Mr. Trump’s criticisms of the FBI, calling the agency “irredeemably corrupt” and its decision to raid Mar-a-Lago for classified documents in 2022 “some third-world garbage.” 

“It’s way past time to clean this FBI house up. They have burned every last shred of faith and trust freedom-loving Americans had in them,” he said on his Fox News show in 2022.

Now, Mr. Bongino is serving as the veritable Chief Operating Officer of a bureau he’s been vigorously denouncing for years. Never before has a deputy director, a job one high-ranking FBI official called “the hardest job in the bureau,” needed to learn the ins and outs of his new gig while on his feet. Mr. Bongino will need to acquaint himself with the interplay between US attorneys and agents and the backdrop of a very complicated set of laws, protocols, internal guidelines, and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Chris Swecker, who served as assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigations Division until his retirement in 2006, said there are nuances to being a director that can take decades to fully absorb.

“You can get yourself tied up in litigation and hearings if you just swing the broad ax in every direction and not do it in a way that at least complies with all the different civil service Merit Systems Protection Boards, EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity). You can just live in court, and I don’t think he understands it,” said Mr. Swecker, now an attorney at law at Charlotte.

The conventional wisdom is that for Mr. Bongino to succeed, he will need to surround himself with experienced FBI agents. Then again, agents, even those who supported Mr. Patel, were hoping the FBI Director would heed that advice when naming his deputy director. At one point, it seemed Mr. Patel would be headed in that direction. During a January meeting with leaders from the FBI Agents Association, Mr. Patel agreed to hire “an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons,” according to an FBIAA memo. But instead, Mr. Trump announced his choice of Mr. Bongino.

“The deputy director role should have always remained an agent,” said Mr. Gagliano. 

Kim George, a 23-year veteran of the bureau who ran for congress in Arizona’s 1st District in 2024, said that while she was “initially surprised” by Mr. Bongino’s hiring, she believes Mr. Bongino is “more than capable of handling the job.”

“If President Trump and Director Patel are confident Bongino is the right person to help lead the Bureau, then I have the ultimate confidence in his selection,” Ms. George added.

While some are giving Mr. Bongino the benefit of the doubt, he still has a very long road ahead of him, and, experienced observers say, should be wary of inadvertently worsening the politicization and weaponization of the bureau he had pledged to fix. 

“I just hope we don’t just switch uniforms and use the same playbook, if you know what I mean,” said Mr. Swecker.