The Federal Bureau of Investigation is wasting even more time on President Donald Trump’s personal grievances, this time by reopening several Biden-era investigations.
Dan Bongino, FBI deputy director, is reviving the 2022 leak of the Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a 2023 incident where cocaine was found at the White House, and the pipe bombs of Jan. 6—which Bongino is convinced was an inside job.
Looks like Trump’s executive order to end the weaponization of the federal government actually meant that Trump and his henchmen are going to weaponize it wherever possible.
Like much of the Trump administration, Bongino didn’t get this job because he has any relevant experience, but rather because of his history as a far-right podcaster and Fox News personality. He’s at the FBI to do Trump’s bidding, not to actually run the agency.
But as far right as Bongino is, there hasn’t been enough for the MAGA faithful, who are furious that he and FBI Director Kash Patel dismissed conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein’s suicide. So now Bongino is trying to get in their good graces—hence these new investigations.
FBI Director Kash Patel is Bongino’s conspiracy theory sidekick.
Except none of these investigations are new.
Under President Joe Biden, there was an eight-month investigation into the Dobbs leak, which included interviewing 97 people and having forensic experts review consumer access to the draft. The investigation concluded that it was not possible to identify the leaker.
Michael Chertoff, secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, also reviewed the investigation and concluded that he could not “identify any additional useful investigative measures” that should have been taken.
So the Dobbs leak has already been investigated twice, but what about the cocaine?
In 2023, a small bag of cocaine was found near where visitors are required to leave their cell phones before entering the White House. The FBI and the Secret Service both investigated the incident, even using fingerprint and DNA analysis. The FBI could not develop enough latent evidence to match against the hundreds of people who passed through the area, and the Secret Service closed the investigation for lack of evidence.
Of course, the most likely explanation for a bag of cocaine found near the visitor area is that a visitor left it there. But according to Bongino, there is “absolutely ZERO chance” that anyone other than a Biden family member could have brought in the cocaine, so we pretty much know how his “investigation” of this one will go.
Similarly, Bongino is pretending that there hasn’t been a thorough investigation into the pipe bombs placed near the Democratic National Committee headquarters in January 2021. The FBI visited more than 1,200 homes and businesses and interviewed more than 1,000 people, but Bongino thinks that the FBI is lying and “just doesn’t want to tell us because it was an inside job.”
This is what you get when you put a conspiracy theory enthusiast in a high-level law enforcement job: a willingness to warp law enforcement to investigate whatever nonsense the right comes up with. And since Bongino’s boss, Patel, is also a conspiracy theorist—and wildly unqualified for his job—he’s certainly not likely to rein him in.
And it’s not just the FBI that’s using official resources to pursue Trump’s grievances.
The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division is investigating Chicago because the city’s mayor committed “reverse racism”—which is not a thing—by hiring people of color in his administration.
The head of the division, Harmeet Dhillon, forced out most of the career attorneys in the division and is prioritizing investigating “radical indoctrination” in schools—whatever that means—and going after trans athletes.
Meanwhile, the Department of Education was already going after schools for daring to let trans kids play sports and threatening investigations into diversity initiatives that the department thinks harm white children.
None of these things are actual investigations. They’re just another way for Trump to use the government to hurt people. Bongino is in his job to make sure that happens, and he knows it. Don’t expect him to pass up any opportunity to misuse the FBI.
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