Bongino Corrects The Record After NY Times Hit Piece About FBI
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino pushed back Saturday against The New York Times for publishing what he called a “poorly thought-out hit piece” targeting reforms to the agency under the Trump administration.
The editorial, titled “Trump’s Politicized FBI Has Made Americans Less Safe,” accused President Trump of reshaping the bureau to serve his political agenda—alleging he stacked it with loyalists, interfered with investigations involving his allies, and used the agency to pressure political opponents.
“Mr. Trump’s playbook for the FBI is plain to see,” The New York Times’ Editorial Board wrote. “He is turning it into an enforcement agency for MAGA’s priorities. Among his many efforts to weaken American democracy and amass more power for himself, his politicization of the F.B.I. is one of the most blatant.”
The piece continued: “Mr. Trump’s politicization of the FBI has left it less able to combat terrorism, foreign espionage, biosecurity threats, organized crime, online scams, white-collar crime, drug trafficking and more.”
Bongino took to X to refute the outlet’s claims, citing statistics he says prove the FBI’s intensified focus on violent crime and illegal immigration “is working.”
“This NY Times article is precisely why hard-working Americans simply do not trust the media,” he began.
Bongino pointed to FBI initiatives like “Summer Heat,” aimed at getting violent offenders off the streets, as driving factors behind what is now a projected record-low U.S. murder rate. He said the agency has arrested approximately 14,000 violent criminals so far this year—a 62% increase compared to the same period last year—including more than 800 violent child predators and 140 human traffickers.
Additionally, Bongino noted that FBI agents have apprehended over 50 foreign intelligence operatives involved in espionage and smuggling dangerous substances into the United States.
“We locked up one of the most dangerous gang leaders in the county, and we dismantled gang operations in nearly every corner of the country, including the largest TDA gang takedown ever,” Bongino wrote. “We locked up 3 of the ‘Top-Ten’ most wanted FBI targets, and we’re closing in on another.”
Over the past few months, the FBI has seized 22% more illicit drugs compared to the same period last year, Bongino noted further. He said that includes over 97,000 pounds of cocaine, more than 7,000 pounds of methamphetamine, and upwards of 2,500 pounds of fentanyl.
The FBI, working with federal partners, also helped apprehend and deport over 18,000 illegal immigrants, many with criminal records, Bongino said. He added that in June, no illegal immigrants were released into the U.S. from the border, and nearly 800 individuals were arrested for attempting to obstruct law enforcement operations.
“I’d like to talk more about some of the incredible work being done by our counter-terror teams, but the information, as you would imagine, is classified,” he wrote in the post. “But I promise you, it’s happening.”
“[T]he conclusion of the piece is so ridiculous that a child could debunk it,” Bongino also wrote. “The authors comically assert that you are ‘less safe’ because [FBI Director] Kash [Patel] and I have aggressively reformed the FBI. Yet, they produce NO evidence whatsoever to backup that claim. And the reason they don’t produced any evidence, is because the numbers tell the opposite story.”
He added: “Notice how The NY Times omitted these data points to tell you “a story,” not the story. And, even though it’s an opinion piece, they should at least attempt to insert reality into it.”
In February, Trump announced Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and NYPD officer, would serve as the next deputy director of the FBI, calling it “great news for law enforcement and American justice.”
Patel, a vocal critic of the investigations targeting Trump, pledged during his confirmation hearing that he would not pursue political retribution against agents involved in the classified documents case or other politically sensitive investigations.
"""My husband brought his mistress to our daughter’s wedding—and then asked me to give her my seat beside him.
"""My husband brought his mistress to our daughter’s wedding—and then asked me to give her my seat beside him. For a few seconds, I honestly thought I was looking at the wrong table, because my name card had vanished and Melissa’s was sitting exactly where mine had been on every seating chart. She wore a pale blue silk dress, lifted her champagne as if she belonged there, and avoided my eyes when I stopped beside the chair. David stood up, pointed to an empty seat at the next table, and quietly said, “For tonight, why don’t you sit over there?”
I had spent fourteen months helping our daughter, Emily, plan that wedding, from dress fittings and florist meetings to late-night calls over napkins and seating charts. That morning, while I fastened the pearl buttons on her gown, she made me promise I would enjoy the day and not let anything between her father and me touch it. I meant that promise, because whatever was left of my marriage, I would not make my daughter’s wedding the battlefield where it died. But David had apparently made a different plan, and he expected me to cooperate with it in silence.
When I asked what Melissa was doing there, David’s face showed guilt for only a second before he hid it behind irritation. He acted as though I were creating the problem simply by noticing that his mistress was seated at the family table in the place reserved for the bride’s mother. Then Melissa looked at me and said, “Honey, today really isn’t the day to make Emily uncomfortable.” I almost laughed, because the woman who had been sleeping with my husband for nearly a year was now warning me not to embarrass my own daughter.
I could feel people settling into nearby seats, laughing and talking, unaware that my marriage was being quietly rearranged in front of them. David kept his voice low and told me we should not “do this here,” as if the humiliation belonged to me because I refused to disappear politely. I looked at the empty chair he had chosen for me between a cousin and someone from the groom’s side, and I realized something colder than anger. This was not spontaneous; he had thought about where Melissa would sit, and he had assumed I would move.
For twenty-eight years, I had been the woman who adjusted, explained, forgave, and made excuses when David forgot anniversaries, missed dinners, or put work ahead of family. When he became distant, I learned to expect less instead of asking for more, and somewhere along the way he mistook that patience for permission. Even now, part of me considered taking the other chair, smiling for photographs, swallowing the humiliation, and telling myself it was all for Emily. I actually reached for the chair because protecting my daughter still mattered more to me than winning a public fight.
Then I heard one word behind me: “Mom?” Emily was walking toward us in her wedding dress, still glowing from the ceremony, and at first she looked confused rather than angry. Her eyes moved from me, to the empty chair, to Melissa, then back to the family table where she had personally placed me months ago. David quickly stepped in and announced that he had “rearranged a few things,” as if changing the bride’s seating chart without permission were no more serious than moving a centerpiece.
Emily asked why I was not sitting in my seat, and David casually pointed to the neighboring table and said I would be sitting “right there.” Her smile disappeared, and her eyes dropped to the place card in front of Melissa. I watched my daughter’s expression go completely still as she picked up that card and turned it over in her hand. In that instant, I understood the worst part: Emily had not approved this, and David had brought his mistress into our daughter’s wedding believing he could force everyone to accept what he wanted once it was already done.
What Emily did not know was that six months earlier, I had discovered David’s affair through a message that appeared on his phone while he was in the shower. Melissa had written, “I hate pretending I don’t miss you when she’s around,” followed by another message asking whether Friday was still theirs. When I confronted him, David spent eleven minutes calling me paranoid, insecure, dramatic, suspicious, and unfair before I repeated Melissa’s words exactly. The silence that followed ended our marriage long before either of us ever said the word divorce.
We had kept the details quiet because Emily was planning her wedding, and I refused to turn her happiest season into a crisis about us. David told me he was “confused,” that what he had with Melissa was “more complicated than an affair,” and that he needed time before making decisions. I agreed only that Emily’s wedding came first, so we slept in separate rooms, spoke carefully, and tried to appear functional while our marriage quietly collapsed. I believed David understood that one day required restraint, but he had apparently used that silence to prepare something else.
Three weeks before the wedding, he had casually asked whether Emily had finalized the family table and whether every seat had been assigned. At the time, I thought it was harmless conversation, but standing there with Melissa’s card in my daughter’s hand, I finally understood why he had asked. He had been checking whether there would be room, and when there was not, he simply removed me. Emily looked up at her father and asked, very quietly, “Where is Mom’s place card?”—and for the first time that night, David had no easy answer.
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