After nabbing a more likely “pipe-bombing” suspect this week, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino did not apologize for initially insinuating that the bombing attempt was “an inside job” on Fox News “Hannity.”
“You put a post on X after this happened and said ‘there's a massive cover-up because the person that planted those bombs, they don’t want you to know who it is because it's either a connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job,’” Hannity reminded Bongino in a Thursday interview.
Bongino admitted that he was paid as a MAGA podcaster and influencer to say whatever was necessary to rile his base before taking the job at the FBI.
“I was paid in the past for my opinions. That’s clear,” Bongino told Hannity. “And one day I will be back in that space but that's not what I'm paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director and we base investigations on facts.”
But some conservative talking heads are not yet convinced. When asked Friday morning if Bongino's admission “threw cold water” on the conspiracy theory once and for all, conservative blogger Rob Bluey, executive director of the Daily Signal told CNN host Aufie Cornish that the investigation “is still ongoing.”
“I don't know, I don't know that we know the answer to that yet," Bluey said.
“We do,” insisted Cornish. “Did they come out and say that?”
“Yeah, but they also said that they have a lot more evidence to examine as to exactly why this person did this,” Bluey said.
“Come on. Come on,” said CNN panelist and New York Times’ “The Interview” Host Lulu Garcia-Navarro. “If they had even the whiff of a suspicion that this person had any affiliation to law enforcement, I think that would have been the headline. And they know who he is, right? They've got his picture. We know where he lives. He was very reclusive. I mean, they have a pretty good profile.”
“You know, this is the thing that I always find really hard when we talk about this is that there's always like, ‘well, we don't know everything. Perhaps there was a there there.’ But we see now that Dan Bongino was just literally talking out of his butt.”
The mood on social media was similarly bitter at Bongino.
“The man made millions lying the American public,” posted YouTube commenter Kelly Scaletta on X.
Other commenters, like Donald Trump supporter and conservative entertainer Rob Garguilo, said a liar could not be trusted with FBI files.
“Bongino just announced on Fox News that he got paid to make sh—— up,” posted Garguilo. “Now he’s the one blacking out the Epstein files and swearing he killed himself. If he was a paid liar then why wouldn’t he be a paid liar now?”
