Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has finally pulled back the curtain on a viral July 2025 social media post that left millions of followers stunned. Appearing on “The Vince Show” Monday, Bongino revealed that the documents that “shocked” him to his “core” were internal files related to the FBI‘s Crossfire Hurricane investigation.
Bongino, who served as the number two official at the bureau for nearly a year, recounted a Friday night in his Washington, D.C. apartment spent reviewing the counterintelligence files. The investigation, which targeted President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, has long been a focal point of criticism regarding political weaponization within the DOJ.
“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,’” Bongino told host Vince Coglianese. “I just thought, gosh, these guardrails just broke down because of people. People are guardrails, not robots.”
The Aftermath of the July Revelations
The original post, which garnered over 20.5 million views, was sent out on July 26, 2025. At the time, Bongino was serving as Deputy Director alongside FBI Director Kash Patel. While his comments were cryptic at the time, they came amid a broader administration push to declassify records related to the 2016 Trump-Russia probe and the origins of COVID-19.+2
Bongino admitted that even now, the memory of what he read remains vivid. “I was really shaken by the whole thing, how these guardrails broke down so quickly. It was astonishing,” he said.
A New Chapter on Rumble
Bongino’s appearance on “The Vince Show” follows his official departure from the FBI on January 4, 2026. After a tumultuous ten-month stint that included a major purge of career officials and the reopening of several high-profile cases—including the January 6 pipe bomb investigation—Bongino is returning to the media space.
He announced that the “new version of The Dan Bongino Show” will launch on February 2, 2026. The program will stream exclusively on Rumble on weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EST. Bongino teased that he intends to dive deeper into his FBI findings on the show, providing “behind-the-scenes details” from his time in government.+1
The relaunch marks a major moment for conservative media, as Bongino looks to capitalize on his firsthand experience inside the bureau. His time as Deputy Director was marked by intense scrutiny from the DOJ and lawmakers, but Bongino maintains that his priority was always “stamping out public corruption.”