Until now all FBI Deputy Directors have been career Special Agents, unlike Directors who although they have connections with the Bureau tend to come from the outside. Anyway, it makes sense the big boss, the FDI Director would have a security detail. However no previous Deputy Directors has had one. They simply carry their own gun. Not Dan Bongino. Nope. He’s got his boss Kash Patel pulling in volunteers from all over the country to provide a full time security detail for him while the protocols for a permanent detail are being worked out. All this instead of Bongino, like every Deputy Director before him carrying his own gun.
So much for Elon Musk and DOGE. ‘Rooting out waste and fraud’ and creating ‘Efficiency’ takes a back seat when a ‘bigly’ pal (suck up) to Trump has an ego. It’s not like Dan Bongino who was a cop with NYPD and then a Secret Service Special Agent (on the Presidential Protection details of Bush 43 and Obama) couldn’t easily complete the process of being certified to carry his own gun. But he’s got an ego! And, more importantly he’s a huge Trump fan/supporter and political operative. So by god if he wants to feel special and have his own 24/7 security detail then that’s how it will be. So much for Patel pushing agents OUT of FBI headquarters and back into the field.
This article by NBC News points out that his predecessor had a part-time agent that would accompany him to certain events (and had a detail when doing business overseas but that seems like common sense) but overall Abbate still carried his own gun like everyone else before him. The linked article also notes that Directors don’t have security details follow them around inside the FBI Headquarters. Guess who does? Yep, Dan Bongino!
Again I want to mention he was a cop, and then on the Presidential Protective detail of TWO Presidents while with the Secret Service. He knows how to shoot for chrissakes! Hell, I haven’t so much as held a handgun since moving from the farm up in WV to NC over ten years ago but within an hour on the range I know I could be drilling bull’s-eyes again. Bongino moved from LE to conservative politics and activism back in 2011 but surely if he hasn’t shot a gun since then (I’m willing to be he has, and often) he can quickly re-acquire his skills.
This is ALL about ego. Bongino wants to feel special. Look like a big shot wherever he goes. Because he’s such a Trump suck-up he’s getting what he wants. I wonder how many other Trump people are getting security (even if not round the clock protection) because they asked Trump to provide it even though no one in their job before now has had it? Or how many will be asking Trump for their very own super-special protective details before this week is out! As I indicated earlier DOGE only applies to those not on Trump’s small list of favorite people and causes. So Bogino who in 2018 said “My entire life right now is about owning the libs” and he’s made a career out of fluffing Trump in various forms of media. He wants what he wants, and Trump who lest we forget PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE has no doubt told Patel to give Bongino his precious detail. Doing so however creates problems:
Last week, a message sent to FBI agents — known as a canvass — asked for volunteers to leave their jobs temporarily to serve on a protective security detail for Bongino. The canvass sought agents willing to relocate for 30 days of temporary duty to protect Bongino 24 hours a day, according to two former FBI officials familiar with security details. Full-time protection could require as many as 20 agents, they said.
The request for 30-day “temporary duty assignments,” or TDYs, means the detail will consist of a rotating group of agents who volunteer to leave their normal duties. Creating the security detail appears to run counter to one of FBI Director Kash Patel’s top priorities: transferring FBI agents from headquarters to the field, where, he argues, they can better fight crime.
The FBI declined to comment.
Of course the FBI declined to comment. Like the Secret Service as a matter of policy they don’t get into specifics of security operations to protect people. That actually makes sense. However it also gives them an excuse to hide behind policy. NBC Contributor Frank Figliuzzi who served at a senior level in the FBI was openly critical, noting that of course Bongino could “carry” (a gun) and that the whole situation we now have is “ridiculous. He goes on to put a fine point on it: “The question is, what is the actual risk and threat here, or does he just want a detail? This is taxpayer money we’re talking about.”
We KNOW the answer to that. Bongino knows his way with a handgun and other weapons and could, like every other prior Deputy Director self-carry and avoid the huge expense of a 24/7 security detail of thirty or so Special Agents. All he’d have to do is put in a few hours on the range to qualify with a pistol. Decades ago in what seems like another life when I was on active duty in the Marines my M.O.S. required me to maintain qualification with a pistol. (In those days the old M-1911 .45) During a “qual week” on Mon.- Thurs. we’d head to the range and fire the same set we’d have to fire on actual qualification day. It took less than an hour. On Friday you fired the fifty rounds that ‘counted’ and got your rating. (I’ll brag and note I qualified Expert, the highest rating every time!) Given his position Bongino could qualify even more easily. HE wouldn’t have to ‘wait his turn’ if he showed up at the FBI’s range! Nor would he have to waste four separate days before the actual ‘qualification’ string of shots.
I’m betting he could before this day is out go to the range and shoot a ‘for the record’ qualifying score and that would be that. No need for the MILLIONS it will cost to provide the kind of 24/7 security detail his boss Patel gets. No, this is all about stroking Bongino’s ego, a ‘Lookee here everyone, I’m sooooooo important I need all these tough guys to make sure nothing happens to me!’ type of thing. As for the logistics of stroking that giant ego, the problems of creating that cocoon of protection:
Finding enough FBI agents to staff protective details often puts a strain on the FBI, a former official said. “The director and AG detail were always struggling to bring in personnel to meet their manning needs, and would routinely bring in TDYers from the field,” the former official said.
The bottom line is that Bongino is perfectly capable of protecting himself just like everyone who’s held his job before him has been, and has done. He just wants to play the role of a “Big Shot” and to hell with everything else. He knows jack about the FBI or how it operates and shouldn’t be in the job he holds. Even the Secret Service doesn’t like him, as he tried to play up his time on the Presidential detail when running for first the House and then the Senate. Oh, while offering claims of being ‘on the inside’ of meetings where Obama was doing ‘shady’ stuff. This just flat out sucks. But despite the wasted millions of dollars Elon and his DOGE team won’t lift a finger to stop it.
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