Maddow Blog |Will the bureau be the same when Trump hired Dan Bongino to help lead the FBI?

In early September 2024, federal prosecutors provided striking and unexpectedly controversial evidence. The Justice Ministry has apparently found evidence of Russian-backed media network funding and directed a program that sent millions of dollars to prominent right-wing commentators and podcast hosts.

As the scandal unfolds, far-right Podcaster Dan Bongino used his plan to expand some advice to his ideological brethren: those in troubled brothers should not work with the FBI, Bongino said.

Six months later, Donald Trump believes it is a good idea to place far-right media figures in key leadership positions at the FBI. NBC News Report:

President Donald Trump announced on Sunday the choice of conservative commentator and former Fox News host Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI and filled a professional FBI agent ( FBI ) Agent position, which has an influential media figure, calls for mass shooting in the agency. Bongino will lead the bureau with Kash Patel, who was narrowly identified by the Senate as a director of the FBI last week.

As the New York Times reported, the deputy director position is effectively responsible for running the bureau’s daily operations, which is “a complex and hard work that requires close cooperation with foreign partners and sensitive investigations.”

For generations, administrative positions have been dedicated to senior agents with experienced senior agents in the FBI. According to a report by NBC News, this trend should continue: Patel reached a consensus in private – shortly before the president’s announcement – ​​the next FBI deputy director will be an active agent with operational expertise and experience, as well as an internal agency Knowledge and respect.

It is in this context that Trump chose a podcast with no FBI experience. The fact that Bongino served as an officer in Secret Service and New York Police Department (NYPD) is interesting, but it is not entirely relevant.

More importantly, this is not a position confirmed by the Senate. The president hopes that unlimited conservative media figures will help implement FBI actions, so unlimited conservative media figures will now help implement FBI actions.

Even by Trump’s standards, this is indeed Bunks.

Actually, knowing where to start is a real challenge. Do we emphasize how Trump’s recent focus on “elite management” is in light of such a decision? Are we focused on Bongino’s failed congressional campaign, which makes it an extension of the ongoing “Failers Team” paper?

What about the president’s concern about the hiring officials of Fox News’ experience? (According to statistics from the New York Times and Media Affairs, Trump has chosen now 20 Former Fox host and contributor (and count) serve his team. ) Or some passages about Trump’s vow to “Certain the FBI” while installing someone who once said, “I’m now about having Libs for the rest of my life. That’s it. libs, because they’ve shown themselves …Pure is pure evil”?

While each of these angles is relevant, the bigger thing is: This is a step when the president wants to tear down the FBI and turn it into something new and distorted.

Trump used an inexperienced and prolific conspiracy theorist to serve as a director of the FBI, at which time he used another inexperienced and prolific conspiracy theorist to serve as a director of the FBI. vice Director of the FBI. Of course, these two men are also election deniers.

As the report at the time mentioned above adds: “The combination of Mr. Patel and Mr. Bongino will represent the least experienced leader’s wife in the bureau’s history. It is almost certain that people peddled misinformation about freedom and embraced partisan politics. How men make an institution that is usually isolated from White House disruptions.”

NBC News also noted that Bongino spent a lot of time specifically targeting the bureau itself “baseless falsehood”, which left the current and former FBI “shocked – very much concerned about the country’s national security.”

I have no doubt there will still be an agency called the FBI, but with Patel and Bongino at the helm, it will not be the FBI.

Before 51 Senate Republicans voted to confirm Patel last week, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said on the ground in the chamber: “If your plan is to destroy the rule of law and put the Justice Department in progress,” said on the floor of the chamber. Become a political weapon to reward loyalty and punish dissent, and then Kash Patel is the ideal candidate to lead the FBI.”

Bongino makes the same problem worse.

This article was originally published on msnbc.com