Opinion | Trumps New Deputy F.B.I. Director Has It Out for the Scumbag Commie Libs
When a New York jury found Donald Trump guilty on 34 felony counts last year, the conservative podcaster Dan Bongino made a veiled threat on social media.“The irony about this for the scumbag commie libs, is that the cold civil war they’re pushing for will end really badly for them,” he wrote.
Liberals, said Bongino, had been playing at revolution, and would now get a taste of the real thing.“They’re not ready for what comes next.”I suppose he was right about one thing: We’re not ready.
On Sunday, Trump announced that Bongino, a former Secret Service agent turned far-right pundit, would be deputy director of the F.B.I.A man who once claimed that his sole focus was “owning the libs” will now be second-in-command at the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agency, a position that doesn’t require Senate confirmation.
Last year on his streaming show, Bongino cackled about the idea that America has a system of checks and balances, saying, with wild, angry eyes, “Power.That is all that matters.” He’s about to have an ungodly amount of it.Bongino’s boss, of course, will be Kash Patel, the Trumpworld enforcer whom the supine Senate confirmed as F.B.I.
director last week.During his confirmation hearings, Patel insisted that, despite publishing an actual enemies list of people he considered deep state villains, he had no intention of turning the F.B.I.
into an instrument of retribution.It seemed obvious at the time that he was lying; making Bongino his deputy simply rubs it in our faces.
If you wanted to turn the F.B.I.into a Trumpist Praetorian Guard, Bongino is exactly the kind of guy you’d hire.The new deputy director of the F.B.I.
cut his teeth as a talking head with frequent appearances on the Alex Jones show.He then had a show on NRATV, the National Rifle Association’s now-defunct streaming service.
Eventually, Bongino became a near-constant presence on Fox News, thrilling a first-term Trump with his apoplectic denunciations o...