"Mr. Bongino’s obsession with his own image, as projected through a constant stream of gung-ho social media posts, landed flat in a proud law enforcement agency..."

"... where working hard and keeping a low profile has been a calling card of leadership. In a lawsuit filed in September, the former head of the bureau’s powerful Washington field office, Steven J. Jensen, said he was taken aback by the 'intense focus' that Mr. Bongino devoted to 'increasing online engagement through his social media profiles in an effort to change his followers’ perception of the F.B.I.'... Mr. Bongino... fell out of favor after lambasting Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case — and alienating Ms. Bondi’s friend and ally, Susie Wiles.... Mr. Bongino’s departure represents a tempered victory for Ms. Bondi, who accused him in a contentious meeting over the summer of planting negative stories about her in the right-wing news media, after the Justice Department issued a memo stating that the Epstein files warranted no further investigation. Mr. Bongino, apparently upset by the exchange, did not show up for work the next day...."

From "Dan Bongino Says He Will Step Down From F.B.I. in January/The departure of Mr. Bongino had seemed inevitable since August, when the White House hired Missouri’s attorney general, Andrew Bailey, to share his job as deputy director" (NYT).

"Ms. Bondi and her allies believe that Mr. Bongino, who parlayed a he-man image and promotion of conspiracies into a top law enforcement job, planted stories..."

"... in the conservative news media blaming Ms. Bondi for the backlash after an announcement earlier this week that the Epstein case would be closed, according to officials close to the situation.... It escalated into an angry face-to-face confrontation at the White House on Wednesday, when an irate Ms. Bondi accused Mr. Bongino of leaking information to the news media in the presence of the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, the White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and one of her deputies, Taylor Budowich. Mr. Bongino denied it, they said."

From "Fallout Over Handling of Epstein Case Erupts Into the Open/An irate attorney general is said to have confronted the deputy director of the F.B.I. at a tense White House meeting earlier in the week" (NYT).

Presumably, what was done in the presence of Kash Patel was the accusation, not the leaking.

Will Bongino resign? "On Friday, a high-profile Bongino booster — the far-right influencer and conspiracist Laura Loomer — claimed, in two dramatic social media posts, that the bureau’s deputy director had taken Friday off to collect his thoughts, and was 'now seriously thinking about RESIGNING' over Ms. Bondi’s actions in the Epstein case. A person close to Mr. Bongino did not dispute her characterization, describing him as very angry and considering a range of options, including quitting."

"Trump’s Top Aides Spread the Epstein Conspiracy. Now They Are Trying to Kill It.

Today's episode of the NYT "Daily" podcast — transcript and audio at Podscribe.

Excerpt: "It's one thing to be on the outside when you can say whatever you want. There's no responsibility for proving anything. It's another, when you have to actually run the organizations you've spent years and years beating up and accusing of coverups, it only takes an instant for the outsiders to then turn on you. And I think that's what Pam Bondi is learning. That's what Kash Patel is learning, and that's what Dan Bongino is learning.... The day-to-day responsibilities that these people are bearing forces them to accept realities that folks outside the wall don't have to.... They may have ultimately stood on the path of truth here, but they've weakened their own position in the movement that elevated them...."

"Patel, Bongino and the other leaders are caught in a trap of their own making. The world they helped create, a world in which conspiracy destroys facts, is now the world they have to inhabit."

Said politics professor Russell Muirhead, quoted in "Once Champions of Fringe Causes, Now in a ‘Trap of Their Own Making’/Top leaders at the Justice Department and the F.B.I. are struggling to fulfill Trump campaign promises often rooted in misinformation and conspiracy theories" (NYT).

From the article:

The tension between practicing politics based on conspiracy theories and having to govern extends far beyond the F.B.I. and Justice Department’s problems with the Epstein case.... Days after the backlash over his Epstein comments, Mr. Bongino offered other promises — new investigations into other episodes that have gripped the president’s base: the discovery of cocaine in the West Wing during the Biden administration, the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion overturning abortion rights in 2022 and the discovery of pipe bombs near Republican and Democratic Party headquarters before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, an unsolved crime that has already consumed significant law enforcement resources.... 

Emerald Robinson, a former White House correspondent for Newsmax, made her frustration clear on social media. “Dan Bongino & Kash Patel know they destroyed their credibility by claiming that ‘Jeffrey Epstein killed himself’ so now they’re trying to offer up three investigations you don’t care about to misdirect you from the Epstein files you do care about,” she wrote. “Sad!”

"If there was a big, explosive there there.... If it was there, we would have told you."

So said Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the F.B.I., sitting alongside the F.B.I. director Kash Patel, quoted at the end of the previous post. The topic is what does he know about Thomas Crooks, the man who shot Trump's ear.

Here's the Fox News interview where Bongino makes the statement. Listen to his tone, watch his eyes, assess his demeanor. 

I'm noticing this verbal tic, this argument format: If X were true, I would have told you. It's an oft-expressed idea. It's the same idea as "Trust me" or "Would I lie?" But those are laughably ineffectual  expressions these days. 

I'm noticing this new effort at demanding trust. Kash Patel used it on Joe Rogan (talking about the Epstein video): "If there was a video of some guy — or gal — committing felonies — and I'm in charge — don't you think you'd see it?"

I'm paying attention to this after experiencing Tim Dillon's brilliant trashing of Patel. "They're doing 'Who's On First,'" with Joe as Costello and Kash as Abbott:

"Thomas Crooks was acting strangely. Sometimes he danced around his bedroom late into the night. Other times, he talked to himself with his hands waving around."

So begins the NYT article, "The Quiet Unraveling of the Man Who Almost Killed Trump/Thomas Crooks was a nerdy engineering student on the dean’s list. He stockpiled explosive materials for months before his attack on Donald Trump, as his mental health eroded."

Sidenote: The NYT is writing "acting strangely" again. We just talked about this grammar error 2 days ago, here. The NYT had "acting strangely" in a headline 2 days ago — "People Around President Trump Are Acting Very Strangely." Please, editors, learn about copulative verbs (AKA linking verbs). You should be writing "acting strange" (for the same reason you'd write "The sky looks blue" and not "The sky looks bluely").

Now, what can we learn about Thomas Crooks? Let's see...

"The video expected to be released by Bongino is said to show Epstein alone in his cell. However, the actual act of suicide is not shown."

"'There’s video clear as day,' Bongino... told Fox News on Thursday. 'He’s the only person in there and the only person coming out. You can see it.... We are working on cleaning it up to make sure you have an enhanced [version] and we’re going to give the original so you don’t think there were any shenanigans,'  he said."

I'm reading "FBI to release Jeffrey Epstein video ‘confirming suicide in cell’/Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the agency, hopes the video will end speculation that Epstein’s death was suspicious" (London Times).

If they're "working on cleaning it up" and "mak[ing] sure" it's "enhanced," then people are going to think there were "shenanigans." If the video is "clear as day," why do they need to clean it up and enhance it? Well, I guess he's saying we'll see "the original" and the cleaned-up, enhanced version that will influence how we look at what we'll see in that "original." I expect people to deny that they are seeing what the enhanced version is nudging us to see and to question whether the original is really the original.

I was just listening to the newest episode of Joe Rogan, where subject of Epstein comes up:

JOE: They were gonna release the Epstein files Day One. Right?... What happened? What happened? What happened?

"The corruption needs to be immediately defunded. The F.B.I. should no longer exist as it’s constituted now."

"The mission should be divvied up. The money should be divvied up amongst other agencies that take the oath to their country seriously.”

Said Dan Bongino, in a 2023 podcast, quoted in "How Dan Bongino Would Run the F.B.I., According to Dan Bongino/The newly appointed deputy director of the F.B.I. has a long history of criticizing the bureau and its leadership. He has promised 'dramatic change'" (NYT).

Note: "The job, which does not require Senate confirmation, has traditionally been filled by a senior agent with vast operational experience and a deep understanding of how the bureau’s various divisions work. The last two deputy directors together had more than 35 years of experience before they assumed the role. Mr. Bongino served as a police officer and a U.S. Secret Service agent years ago, but has no experience with the F.B.I."

"The liberal democracy most of us grew up taking for granted is brittle and teetering, but its fall still feels unthinkable..."

"... even if it also seems increasingly inevitable. Perhaps this is one reason Democrats, with a few admirable exceptions, seem so frozen. People who’ve spent their lives working within a system of laws and civic institutions may be particularly unsuited to respond to that system’s failure. But an F.B.I. run by Patel and Bongino is a sign that the system — which for all its manifold flaws has provided Americans a level of stability uncommon in history — is falling apart."

Writes Michelle Goldberg, in "Trump’s New Deputy F.B.I. Director Has It Out for the 'Scumbag Commie Libs'" (NYT).

If only that "system of laws and civic institutions" had been taken care of by those who purport to care so much now. 

The phrase "Scumbag Commie Libs" comes from this Dan Bongino tweet from May 30, 2024, the day Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts. This is the full tweet:

"Folks, if they had this subject on their radar that you had a potential threat... Why was President Trump even on stage at that point?"

"Why was President Trump even on stage at that point?"

New from @dbongino: Sources tell him that “they had been monitoring [the sh*oter] since he came in around that external perimeter area…they lost track of him, apparently, and he was hiding in a building about 300 yards… pic.twitter.com/I6d3As7vEU

— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) July 15, 2024

AND:

"Elon Musk, ever a bundle of contradictions and inconsistencies, has long made his politics tricky to pin down."

The NYT — ever a bundle of [fill in the blank] — has been avoiding the "Twitter Files" but is delving into The Mind of Musk in "Critics Say Musk Has Revealed Himself as a Conservative. It’s Not So Simple. Elon Musk has tweeted about political topics regularly since taking over Twitter, often belittling some liberal causes. But what he stands for remains largely unclear" by Jeremy W. Peters.

"All you media clowns and goons and nuts who told me I was the crazy conspiracy theorist, tell me we live in a free country...."

Dan Bongino @dbongino reacts to having been blacklisted by Twitter:

"This is some Soviet-style bullsh*t right here." pic.twitter.com/eQrLV4jgUx

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) December 9, 2022

BACKGROUND:

"On any given afternoon, Bongino might read advertisements for survivalist food rations ('Act now, and your order will be shipped quickly and discreetly to your door in unmarked boxes') and shotguns and massage chairs and filet mignon and holsters..."

"... 'custom-molded to fit your exact firearm for a quick, smooth draw.' In between, he supplies listeners with a tight rotation of political hits—a jab at the 'pino' ('President in name only'), followed by a savaging of the press ('Don’t ever call me a journalist, that’s an insult')—interspersed with dispatches from the culture wars (a ruckus over the use of 'jedi' as an acronym for 'justice, equality, diversity, and inclusion,' which prompted Bongino to cry, 'They can’t cancel "Star Wars"!').... Bongino, like other prominent [Trump] supporters, seems to put increasing stock in what researchers refer to as 'blue lies,' the kinds of claims that pull believers together and drive skeptics away....  Bongino is also adept at the 'accusation in a mirror' approach—co-opting the language and strategies of his opponents.... Nothing, though, has proved more potent than the constant regeneration of fear.... 'These people want you dead,' he said, and offered a call to action. 'The activism has to be dialled up times ten. These people are crazy....'...  In his punditry, Bongino talks about fear all the time. 'Fear has always been the Democrats’ coin of the realm,' he told podcast listeners in June. 'How else are they going to coax you into delivering them your civil liberties and freedom? They do it through things like coronavirus.' In a mock orator’s voice, he said, 'Give up your right to assemble!'"

From "Dan Bongino and the Big Business of Returning Trump to Power/The Secret Service agent turned radio host is furious at liberals—so he’s trying to build a right-wing media infrastructure in time for 2024" by Evan Osnos (The New Yorker).

I don't think I'd ever noticed the term "blue lies" before. Here's an article from 2017 in Scientific American — "How the Science of 'Blue Lies' May Explain Trump’s Support/They are a very particular form of deception that can build solidarity within groups." We're told it's "a psychologist’s term for falsehoods, told on behalf of a group, that can actually strengthen bonds among the members of that group":