‘Even now talking about it, I just remember that feeling. Like, oh my gosh, did this really happen?’
STUART, Florida – Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino is finally breaking his silence about what “shocked” him down to his “core” during his tenure at the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
As WorldNetDaily reported in July, Bongino posted a cryptic message on X stating: “The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations. It is a priority for us.
“But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.”
That post collected more than 20 million views, with many wondering to what he was specifically referring.
Bongino, now a private citizen after leaving the bureau Jan. 4, appeared on “The Vince Coglianese Show” Tuesday to go public about the message, saying it had to to with Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s counterintelligence probe into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign concerning claims of Russian collusion.
“It was basically about Crossfire. I was just reading some stuff about Crossfire,” Bongino said. “And … I was blown away … I lived in this kind of tiny apartment in D.C., … And I’m sitting there and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I couldn’t believe it happened here.’ You know, Vince, like having been a Secret Service agent, a police officer, and I hadn’t been in the FBI role that long, but it had been a few months.”
“I just thought, gosh, these guardrails just broke down because of people. People are guardrails, not robots … And I was just stunned at how many people just let this – just the incredibly poor decision-making,” he continued.
🚨NEW: @dbongino reveals to @VinceCoglianese what triggered his viral X post on being “SHOCKED” to his “core” at FBI🤯
“I was just reading some stuff about Crossfire … I was blown away … really shaken by how these guardrails broke down so quickly.” @DailyCaller https://t.co/4DAbLKk69k pic.twitter.com/hRWxFLCmXT
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) January 13, 2026
“It blew my mind … I got up the next day and I just fired that out … I was really shaken by the whole thing, how these guardrails broke down so quickly. It was astonishing. And I was – oh boy. Even now talking about it, I just remember that feeling. Like, oh my gosh, did this really happen? Yeah, that’s what that was about.”
Some reaction to Bongino’s remarks includes: “So shocked that he quit before doing anything about it.”
“Not sure if Dan knew this, but he would have had more opportunity to bring those to people to account as as FBI deputy director than he will podcasting for 2 hours 5 days a week.”
Bongino, who has more than 7 million followers on X, is now preparing for his “new version of The Dan Bongino Show” to debut Feb. 2 on Rumble on weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Eastern Time.
On Tuesday he expressed his disdain for the New York Times, saying, “The NY Times has a boiling-bunny-like obsession with me. They’re averaging a few stories a week to feed their lemmings. They run the same play over and over and they wonder why they keep losing the game.”
He called the newspaper “a ‘media’ enterprise that viciously propagated the most destructive political hoax in American history,” adding: “You guys are jokers, relying on people we likely removed for misfeasance or malfeasance, to feed your ignorant audience the nonsense gruel they crave.”
The NY Times has a boiling-bunny-like obsession with me. They’re averaging a few stories a week to feed their lemmings.
They run the same play over and over and they wonder why they keep losing the game. Here’s my response to their latest “story.” pic.twitter.com/MN4fzhSEO9— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) January 13, 2026
