FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino were prolific conspiracy pushers before they took helm at the federal government’s biggest law enforcement arm.
But now the two are walking back on some of their previous claims after being able to see behind the curtain for nearly a year.
After a press conference providing details on the FBI’s arrest and charging of the Washington, DC pipe bomber, Bongino said he would commit himself to being ‘guided by the facts.’
At that same press confernece, Patel said: ‘When you attack American citizens, when you attack our institutions of legislation, when you attack our nation’s Capitol, you attack the very being of our way of life.’
Many on social media were quick to point to what they saw as hypocrisy coming from the FBI director and his deputy.
One user said the comment was ‘ironic’ and claimed ‘these are unserious people’ after Donald Trump pardoned 1,500 January 6 protesters on his first day in office. Another called Bongino a ‘clown’ for admitting his old job was to push conspiracies.
‘It’s really great they finally know the right guy to pardon,’ an X user sarcastially quipped.
Patel and Bongino was a prominent pro-MAGA voices defending those who rioted at the US Capitol following Trump’s 2020 election defeat to Joe Biden.
And Bongino alleged on his podcast before earning his government job that Joe Biden’s FBI actually knew the identity of the bomber and was keeping it from getting out.
Once leadership was installed at Trump’s second-term FBI, Bongino was tasked with heading the effort to find and charge the person who placed pipe bombs outside the Washington, DC headquarters for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) on January 5, 2021.
Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity, Bongino walked-back on some of his previous conspiracy rhetoric claiming the FBI was complicit in the bomb planting.
‘I was paid in the past for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day I’ll be back in that space,’ the deputy director claimed. ‘But that’s not what I’m paid for now.’
‘I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts,’ Bongino insisted, claiming the FBI would ‘be guided by the facts as this thing goes forward.’
Just months before taking office, Bongino claimed on his far-right podcast that the pipe bomb ase was ‘the biggest scandal in FBI history.’
He alleged that the agency knew the identity of the bomber and said the bombs were planted ‘to create a narrative that crazy MAGA people are trying to assassinate Kamala Harris.’
One X user gawked at Bongino’s comments to Hannity, admitting ‘he used to get paid to push conspiracy theories on the internet.’
‘Most people already knew, but I still can’t believe he actually said it—what a clown,’ the user wrote.
Another wrote on X: ‘Are you going to mention that the guy is a Trump supporter who thought the 2020 election was rigged?’
Hellbound and Down 