FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has outlined the Bureau’s current priorities on national security, immigration, and public health transparency during a recent interview with Sean Hannity on Fox News.
During the interview, Bongino offered a glimpse into how the FBI is approaching both domestic and international threats.
Bongino stated their first objective is preventing large-scale terrorist attacks in major U.S. cities.
“We can’t have New York, D.C., or L.A. go boom,” he said.
The FBI director then explained that the concern shapes their daily operational briefings, while stressing that other serious threats are on equal footing, including cyberattacks that could disrupt infrastructure and foreign efforts to infiltrate U.S. intelligence operations.
“The massive cyber threat, the counterintelligence threat,” he said, are now “co-equal priorities.”
Hannity then brought up the southern border.
“There are people here… who want to do bad things—I think that is fairly obvious,” Bongino said.
“We have our FBI teams out there at 4:00 AM and 5:00 AM, removing these people from the country, while still preventing a terror attack.”
Bongino said the Bureau is taking a more direct approach in how it classifies certain acts.
“We’re not the Federal Bureau of freaking word games anymore,” Bongino said, noting that acts involving targeted violence and extremist slogans will be treated as terrorism.
“We’re damn well going to investigate it—as targeted violence and a terror attack.”
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He added, “What the hell do you want us to investigate it as? A freaking grand larceny auto?!”
As the interview pivoted to COVID-19, Hannity asked whether the government had misled the public about the virus’s origin.
“Covid origins, are we going to find out information that the government lied to us?”
Bongino answered, “You’re damn right you are. We’re all over that.”
When asked if it was a deliberate cover-up, Bongino said an investigation is already underway.
“Well, you’re going to find out. Yeah, listen, that’s the one I am the most optimistic about.”
“I was pretty clear on my social media account that I ordered that case immediately to be looked into again. We have a great investigator on it and I think we should see action on that one shortly.”
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When asked whether former FBI officials would be held accountable, Bongino mentioned former Director James Comey, who he said has publicly criticized current FBI leadership.
“Comey, as a matter of fact, the guy who has a lot to say, ironically, about me and Kash—and that’s fine, you know, he is allowed an opinion, he is a free American citizen like anybody else—but we found the items.”
Bongino also noted that those items included sensitive documents.
“I addressed this on Fox & Friends and I can go into a little bit more detail, but we found the things,” Bongino reiterated.
“We found documents—documents that were not where they should have been. And they were not good flattering documents for Jim Comey.”
“The hubris displayed from a man like Jim Comey, who disgraced the FBI numerous times with his role in Crossfire Hurricane and other abominations, it’s just kind of stunning that he continues to attack our leadership, when we have to clean up the mess that Jim Comey created… as we continue to find stuff from his era and vintage.”
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Hannity concluded the interview by asking what the FBI might look like a year into a second Trump term.
“A year from now, I want the FBI to have played a key role in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of violent criminals from the United States,” Bongino said.
“I want the FBI to have thwarted multiple terror plots that we can’t tell you about every day.”
“Sean, every morning we do a briefing, Kash and I, with our ops directors. We can’t sit here and take a victory lap every time something does not go boom,” Bongino said.
“Matter of fact we almost never do it because we can’t.”
“I want to make sure that our counterintelligence operation is top-notch… that the ever-present threat of the Chinese Communist Party infiltrating our systems, cyber spying on us—that by the end we have made significant progress,” he said.
“I want to be sure the drone threat—that we’ve taken action on it, not just talked about it.”
Bongino explained that the Bureau’s success should be reflected in measurable public safety outcomes.
“I want to make sure we can look back to the American people and say, look—with President Trump’s leadership, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Director Patel—the murder rate is at a historic low.”
“Crime rates have gone down,” Bongino said.
“The border is sealed, and your FBI took a part in that..”
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