Dan Bongino said in an interview aired Tuesday that he lives in constant fear of retaliation after finding FBI files tied to the Crossfire investigation, saying the documents showed systemic corruption and convinced him the bureau knew the case was “bulls— from the start.” He said he worries his home could be attacked or that he could end up in prison on bogus charges.
Bongino said he discovered the Crossfire documents at FBI offices last year and described one file as “basically the keys to the kingdom on Crossfire.” He said he left the FBI in January after roughly 10 months on the job, adding that he was “really, I’m scared” and thinks every day that “they’re going to come for me.”
The files, he said, related to the FBI’s investigation into allegations that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Bongino compared his situation with Trump’s, saying the former president faced years of investigations and that “the presidency could change — I hope it doesn’t — in a little over two years,” a reference to the next White House fight ahead.
He said he brought in his own lawyer from outside the bureau and tried to do everything by the book, but also said there were “two FBIs” and that he had to fake details about his schedule to find out which “snakes” at the agency were leaking information to the media. Bongino said he told Kash Patel from the start that he would serve less than a year, use the time to push training reforms, get rid of bad apples and refocus the bureau on violent crime.
The account leaves one question with real weight: whether the documents Bongino says he found will ever be made public in a way that settles what happened inside the bureau. For now, he says the fear is not abstract. It is personal, daily and, by his own account, likely to follow him for the rest of his life.
