The FBI has named the head of its New York field office, Christopher Raia, as its new deputy director, marking the first time in a year that a career FBI official will serve in the role. The former Missouri attorney general and FBI co-deputy director, Andrew Bailey, had been expected to assume the post outright following Daniel Bongino’s departure this month but will remain in his current position, according to reports.

The promotion of Mr. Raia, a 22-year veteran of the bureau who was installed as the assistant director in charge of the FBI’s New York City field office in April 2025, signals a return to bureau traditions. The deputy director role is considered the FBI’s most demanding.

Mr. Raia will be the FBI’s chief operating officer, overseeing more than 30,000 employees across 56 field offices nationwide. It is the “perfect” role for Mr. Raia, who was “an excellent case agent and superb supervisor” before getting the nod to run the New York office, a former agent tells The New York Sun. 

“Chris’ promotion to this vitally important position signals that the FBI is on the right path into the future and that the important, evidence-based, investigative work conducted by agents daily will be the foundation of the bureau moving forward,” a former special agent and Texas A&M associate professor, Michael Howell, tells the Sun.

 “The position has always and should always be held by a career FBI agent,” Mr. Howell added.

Last year, during a meeting with the FBI Agents Association, the FBI director, Kash Patel, agreed to hire as his top deputy “an on-board, active Special Agent as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons,” according to an FBIAA memo. Instead, Mr. Bongino, a former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent turned MAGA podcaster, was given the role at the personal invitation of President Trump. 

 “Kash is a really, really good lawyer, had DOD experience, but they wanted someone with law enforcement experience in that seat,” Mr. Bongino told host Hayley Caronia this week during a taping of the “Nightly Scroll with Hayley” podcast.

Upon assuming the role, Mr. Bongino helped oversee investigations into matters that he once devoted considerable airtime to on his “Dan Bongino Show” podcast, where he regularly floated theories painting the “Deep State” as a secret culprit. After taking a top government role, Mr. Bongino publicly walked back many of the claims he had once advanced as a media personality. He lasted just 10 months in the job, announcing his departure in December. He announced this week that he will be returning to his popular podcast, “The Dan Bongino Show,” in February.

In a statement to the Sun, the FBI welcomed Mr. Patel’s decision to select “an active, on-board FBI Special Agent” as the bureau’s No. 2 official.

“Deputy Director Raia brings decades of FBI experience to the role. We look forward to working with both Deputy Director Raia and Deputy Director Andrew Bailey as we continue to have the backs of FBI Special Agents,” the FBIAA said.

Mr. Raia earned national attention in 2025 for taking command of the investigation into an ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans’ French Quarter in which a 42-year-old Army veteran drove a rental pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s Eve revelers, killing 14 people.

The assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans office, Alethea Duncan, was roundly criticized for telling reporters the attack was “not a terrorist event.” The suspect, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, an American from Texas, posted on his Facebook page a video of himself saying he had joined ISIS and had wanted his attack to bring attention to the “war between the believers and the disbelievers.” Mr. Raia assumed control of the investigation the following day.  Ms. Duncan was later reassigned within the bureau.

Mr. Raia joined the FBI in 2003, spending the bulk of his career in Texas and Washington, D.C., according to his LinkedIn page. As the head of the New York office, he succeeded James Dennehy, who was forced into early retirement by the Department of Justice after rallying his men to “dig in” and push back at efforts to identify agents who worked the January 6th investigation.