FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino plans to step down early next year, MS NOW reports

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has said helium plans to measurement down from his relation aboriginal adjacent year, MS NOW reported Wednesday, citing eight radical briefed connected his account.

Bongino, the No. 2 authoritative astatine the FBI nether Director Kash Patel, besides told his confidants that helium volition not beryllium returning to the bureau's office this month, those radical said.

He has considered announcing his departure connected Friday, 4 radical told MS NOW.

Bongino, asked by MS NOW astir his plans, declined to corroborate oregon contradict reports of his coming departure, but added, "Print immoderate you'd like. No 1 believes you anyway. Thanks."

The FBI declined CNBC's petition for remark connected the report.

Bongino, a erstwhile constabulary serviceman and Secret Service agent, had been selected by President Donald Trump for the high-profile instrumentality enforcement occupation contempt him having nary anterior FBI experience.

A fixture successful blimpish media, Bongino's nationalist treatment of respective conspiracy theories resurfaced aft helium joined the government.

As a backstage citizen, Bongino had reportedly suggested that the planting of tube bombs successful Washington, D.C., connected the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, was an "inside job."

Earlier this month, Bongino took a triumph thigh aft national agents, aft a astir five-year search, arrested and charged Brian Cole Jr. with mounting those devices.

When asked by Fox News' Sean Hannity astir however his past comments squared with his past claims astir the tube bombs, Bongino said helium had been "paid successful the past" for his opinions, "and 1 time I volition beryllium backmost successful that space."

"That's not what I'm paid for now. I'm paid to beryllium your lawman director, and we basal investigations connected facts," helium said.

Bongino had besides antecedently questioned authoritative accounts of the circumstances surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death. The affluent financier and notorious enactment offender hanged himself portion successful jailhouse successful 2019.

As an FBI official, Bongino said determination was nary question that Epstein died by suicide.

"I person reviewed the case. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. There's nary grounds successful the lawsuit record indicating otherwise," he wrote connected X in May.

In July, the FBI released a memo concluding that Epstein died by termination and that his rumored "client list" did not exist.

That memo sparked a backlash among members of Trump's MAGA movement, wherever conspiracy theories astir Epstein person proliferated for years. Soon after, Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi angrily confronted each different astatine the White House according to a The New York Times report.

Friday, the time Bongino is reportedly considering announcing his departure, is besides the deadline for the Trump medication to comply with a bipartisan instrumentality ordering the merchandise of the government's files connected its Epstein investigations.