Dan Bongino, a former New York City police officer and Secret Service agent turned right-wing pundit and podcaster, will be the next deputy director of the F.B.I., President Trump said on Sunday night.
Mr. Trump, making the announcement on his social media site, said the newly installed F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, had named Mr. Bongino to the No. 2 post at the country’s most powerful law enforcement agency. The role of deputy director does not require Senate confirmation, meaning two steadfast Trump loyalists will effectively be installed at the uppermost reaches of an agency known for its tradition of independence.
The announcement came about an hour after the F.B.I. Agents Association told its members that Mr. Patel had privately acknowledged that the next deputy director should be an F.B.I. agent, intensifying mistrust among the rank-and-file.
The F.B.I. did not respond to a request for a comment.
In the past, F.B.I. directors have selected senior agents with extensive experience to essentially run the bureau’s operations, a complex and grueling job that requires working closely with foreign partners and navigating sensitive investigations.
The choice of Mr. Bongino is a radical and abrupt departure from that practice and raises startling questions about how two people who have never served as F.B.I. agents will oversee the vast surveillance and investigative powers of an agency of 38,000 people and a budget of about $11 billion.
The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leadership pair in the history of a bureau typically insulated from White House interference. It will also ensure that the bureau will be run by men who have freely peddled misinformation and embraced partisan politics.
“My entire life right now is about owning the libs,” Mr. Bongino said in 2018. He has also echoed a popular grievance among the far right denouncing the so-called deep state.
Mr. Bongino’s ascension comes at a time of enormous upheaval at the agency as the Justice Department has pushed out some senior executives who, collectively, have decades of experience running the different divisions of the bureau.
It is unclear what will happen to the interim leaders, Brian Driscoll and Robert C. Kissane, who served as the acting director and acting deputy director until Mr. Patel’s confirmation. Their initial refusal to accede to the Justice Department’s demand for the names of bureau personnel who investigated the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, made them well liked internally, willing, in the view of many inside the bureau, to stand up to what was perceived as political interference.
Many had hoped the two would remain in Washington to help Mr. Patel run the F.B.I.
In an internal newsletter distributed to agents before Mr. Trump’s announcement, the head of the association, Natalie Bara, said that in a meeting in January with Mr. Patel, she and the group’s vice president, Jen Morrow, urged that his lieutenant “be an onboard, active special agent, as has been the case for 117 years for many compelling reasons.”
Mr. Patel, she said, agreed.
Mr. Patel had wanted Mr. Bongino as his deputy, a person familiar with the matter said, though it remained unclear whether Mr. Trump had also pushed for Mr. Bongino’s selection.
Mr. Bongino ran for elected office three times before gaining popularity as a right-wing commentator.
A former Fox News host, Mr. Bongino left the network in 2023. Notably, he hosted Mr. Trump on his show in 2021, at a time when the network — and much of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire — was trying to turn the page on the Trump era.
On Fox News in December 2021, Geraldo Rivera called the events of Jan. 6 a riot “unleashed, incited and inspired” by Mr. Trump, leading Mr. Bongino to question his fealty. “The back-stabbing of the president you’re engaging in is really disgusting,” he said.
His tough-talking style catapulted him to stardom on radio and on social media, where he often peddles rampant misinformation. That includes spreading the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen, falsely claiming that masks are ineffective at preventing the spread of the coronavirus, and perpetuating labyrinthine and baseless conspiracy theories involving a plot by Democrats to spy on Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign.
In an interview with The New Yorker, Pete Hegseth, then a fellow Fox News host and now the defense secretary, equated Mr. Bongino to a general who, like him, got “to serve in information warfare.”
The news elicited questions about how the bureau would retain its credibility with two men at the helm who have a history of spreading exaggerated and misleading information.
In an email to the F.B.I. after he was confirmed, Mr. Patel said, “I will always have your backs, because you have the backs of the American people.”
Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
