'Bizarre' move signals 'beginning of the end' for Dan Bongino at FBI: analyst

Morale is already low at the FBI, but an analyst warned things are about to get worse.

The FBI typically has a director and deputy director to lead the federal law enforcement agency, but pairing Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as co-deputy director alongside former conservative podcast host Dan Bongino "isn't normal at all," according to MSNBC's Steve Benen.

"As the bureau struggles with abuses, misuses, purges and Trump-era politicization, there are three elements to this worth keeping in mind," Benen wrote. "The first is that this new arrangement is bizarre."

The Washington Post described Bailey's appointment as "the latest unusual personnel move at the FBI," and Benen said his arrival "appears to signal the beginning of the end of Bongino’s tenure."

"When Donald Trump tapped [Bongino] for the FBI leadership post in March, it was immediately recognized as a ridiculous choice: Bongino, a right-wing provocateur and podcast personality, was spectacularly unqualified," Benen wrote. "Five months later, it’s clear that he hasn’t enjoyed the job."

Bongino appeared on Fox News back in May bellyaching about how hard he found his new job helping to lead the bureau, and he has more recently skipped work for days after a clash with Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case.

"Now that the president has hired a different FBI deputy director," Benen wrote, "the odds of Bongino finding some other job he likes more seem to have just improved."

But the third and most striking element of Bailey's hiring is Bailey himself, according to Benen.

"The outgoing Missouri attorney general might not be a household name (at least, that is, not yet), but his record during a brief career in elected office is one of a hyperpartisan Republican activist," Benen wrote.

Bailey tried to sue New York to prevent Trump's sentencing on on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the Stormy Daniels hush money case, and Benen said he had revealed himself as a MAGA firebrand.

"This is the same far-right lawyer who wanted then-President Joe Biden to be criminally prosecuted for his student loan debt forgiveness policy," Benen wrote. "He also launched an investigation into Google, alleging that the tech giant was secretly conspiring to suppress conservative views, which dovetailed with a related investigation into AI chatbots that Bailey said were too anti-Trump."

He highlighted other efforts to keep exonerated prisoners behind bars and push weird ideas to ban abortion, and Benen said Bailey – who reportedly flunked his interview as Trump's first choice to lead the FBI – would further erode public confidence in the FBI.

"Put another way, under Kash Patel, the FBI has struggled," Benen wrote. "With Bailey joining the bureau’s leadership team, it’s likely to get worse."