U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters, after disembarking Air Force One on his return from Dover, Delaware, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., Dec. 17, 2025.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino plans to step down from his role early next year, MS NOW reported Wednesday, citing eight people briefed on his account.
President Donald Trump later appeared to confirm that Bongino could be headed for the exit.
“Dan did a great job,” Trump told reporters on an airport tarmac after returning to Washington, D.C., from Delaware.
“I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump added.
Bongino, the No. 2 official at the FBI under Director Kash Patel, has told his confidants that he will not be returning to the bureau’s headquarters this month, the people told MS NOW.
He has considered announcing his departure on Friday, four people told the outlet.
Asked by MS NOW about his plans, Bongino declined to confirm or deny reports of his coming departure, but added, “Print whatever you’d like. No one believes you anyway. Thanks.”
The FBI declined CNBC’s request for comment on the report. The bureau did not immediately comment on Trump’s subsequent remarks.
FBI Director Kash Patel, left, and Dan Bongino, deputy director of the FBI, conduct a news conference at the Department of Justice, Dec. 4, 2025.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Bongino, a former police officer and Secret Service agent, had been selected by Trump for the high-profile law enforcement job despite him having no prior FBI experience.
A fixture in conservative media, Bongino’s public discussion of several conspiracy theories resurfaced after he joined the government.
As a private citizen, Bongino had reportedly suggested that the planting of pipe bombs in Washington on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot was an “inside job.”
Earlier this month, Bongino took a victory lap after federal agents, after a nearly five-year search, arrested and charged Brian Cole Jr. with setting those devices.
When asked by Fox News’ Sean Hannity about how his current comments squared with his past claims about the pipe bombs, Bongino said he had been “paid in the past” for his opinions, “and one day I will be back in that space.”
“That’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts,” he said.
Bongino had also previously questioned official accounts of the circumstances surrounding Jeffrey Epstein’s death. The wealthy financier and notorious sex offender hanged himself while in jail in 2019.
As an FBI official, Bongino said there was no question that Epstein died by suicide.
“I have reviewed the case. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. There’s no evidence in the case file indicating otherwise,” he wrote on X in May.
In July, the FBI released a memo concluding that Epstein died by suicide and that his rumored “client list” did not exist.
That memo sparked a backlash among members of Trump’s MAGA movement, where conspiracy theories about Epstein have proliferated for years. Soon after, Bongino and Attorney General Pam Bondi angrily confronted each other at the White House according to a The New York Times report.
Friday, the day Bongino is reportedly considering announcing his departure, is also the deadline for the Trump administration to comply with a bipartisan law ordering the release of the government’s files on its Epstein investigations.