The brief and tumultuous tenure of MAGA podcaster turned FBI deputy director, Daniel Bongino, may already be coming to an end, with his office largely empty and his chief of staff assuming a new leadership role in Baltimore, the Sun has learned.

While Mr. Bongino, 51, was in his Washington office on Friday, he was also believed to have informed several special agents in charge in the FBI’s 56 field offices that he would be leaving his role, the Sun has learned. His Washington office was empty as of Friday evening, the Sun has learned. An FBI spokesman did not respond to questions from the Sun. 

Hours after the Sun’s exclusive published, Fox News, citing two sources, reported on X that Mr. Bongino will make a decision about his future at the bureau “in the next few weeks.”

His departure, which has been rumored in recent weeks, may have already been put into motion. In November, Mr. Bongino’s chief of staff, Jimmy Paul, was named the special agent in charge of the Baltimore field office, after he served in his role with Mr. Bongino for only nine months, according to his public LinkedIn page. 

As Mr. Bongino’s chief of staff, Mr. Paul, a 17-year FBI veteran, was the FBI’s first-ever Indian American to hold that role, according to a social media post from the fraternal organization American Malayalee Law Enforcement United. The FBI did not respond to questions from the Sun on whether a new chief of staff for Mr. Bongino had been named.

But Mr. Bongino was still active on social media on Monday. On his dedicated FBI X account, he reposted news of the FBI’s arrest of four alleged members of a Pro-Palestinian group accused of planning a coordinated New Year’s Eve bombing attack in Los Angeles. 

“PROTECT THE HOMELAND and CRUSH VIOLENT CRIME. 

These words are not slogans, they’re the investigative pillars of this FBI,” he wrote on X. 

Meanwhile, last week, the FBI’s new co-Deputy Director, Andrew Bailey – who raised eyebrows when he left his powerful role as Missouri’s elected attorney general for the FBI job – was part of a U.S. delegation that joined the attorney general, Pam Bondi, during her trip to Rome to attend the Palermo Protocol Conference on human trafficking, a person close to the meeting told the Sun. Spokespeople for the FBI and the Justice Department did not respond to questions on whether Mr. Bongino was originally slated to be part of Ms. Bondi’s delegation. 

In recent weeks, Mr. Bailey was reportedly being considered as the replacement for the embattled FBI Director, Kash Patel. This weekend, Mr. Patel’s reputation took yet another blow when he touted on social media that a suspect in the Brown University shooting had been detained, only for that suspect to be released a short while later. Mr. Patel had made a similar announcement during the early stages of the FBI’s investigation into the Charlie Kirk assassination, which he was also forced to walk back.

Should Mr. Bongino depart, Mr. Bailey is expected to assume Mr. Bongino’s role and become the FBI’s deputy director, considered the bureau’s most demanding job, in January 2026.  

Indeed, at the time of his appointment, Mr. Bongino’s unprecedented transition from successful podcast provocateur to the FBI’s No. 2 official was considered a stark break from bureau tradition. Mr. Bongino, a former NYPD cop and Secret Service agent, came to the role despite having zero prior FBI experience. Since assuming the role, Mr. Bongino has overseen the investigations that he once devoted considerable airtime to on his “Dan Bongino Show” podcast, where he regularly floated theories that painted the Deep State as the secret culprit. Once he was on the inside, Mr. Bongino publicly debunked many of the theories he had previously espoused as a media personality.

Earlier this month, the FBI announced the arrest of 30-year-old Brian Cole Jr. for placing two pipe bombs outside the Republican and Democratic party headquarters the night before the January 6th Capitol riots. As a podcaster, Mr. Bongino accused the Biden-era FBI of a “massive cover-up” in its handling of the pipe bomb investigation, even speculating that it was an “inside job” by the FBI.

Following Mr. Cole’s arrest, Mr. Bongino told Fox News host Sean Hannity that he previously floated those conspiracy theories as he was “paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions.”

“That’s clear, and one day I’ll 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,” Mr. Bongino told Mr. Hannity. 

In July, Mr. Bongino reportedly clashed with Ms. Bondi during a contentious White House meeting over the Justice Department’s rollout of its Jeffrey Epstein investigation memo, which concluded that the disgraced financier’s 2019 death was a suicide. Before joining the FBI, Mr. Bongino had claimed Epstein was murdered by Deep State actors to protect powerful elites.

During a May appearance on “Fox and Friends,” a visibly dejected Mr. Bongino said he “gave up everything” for a highly demanding FBI job that was keeping him away from his wife.

“I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., by myself,” he said.

Then, in a damning report from the National Alliance of Retired and Active-Duty FBI Special Agents and Analysts said Mr. Bongino lacked a basic understanding of the law enforcement agency, with one anonymous participant describing him as “something of a clown.” 

The report added that “it was a mistake not to appoint a career FBI Special Agent to the position of FBI Deputy Director” who had “a better understanding of the workings of the FBI.”

Like Mr. Bongino, Mr. Bailey has no FBI experience, but he was widely regarded as an effective, if not highly partisan, attorney general in Missouri.