Dan Bongino
Daniel John Bongino is an American political commentator, radio show host, author, politician, former congressional candidate, and former U.S. Secret Service agent. Bongino ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican in 2012, 2014, and 2016.
Professional career
NYPD
Bongino worked for the New York City Police Department from 1995 to 1999.Secret Service and book release
Bongino joined the United States Secret Service in 1999 as a special agent, leaving the New York Field Office in 2002 to become an instructor at the Secret Service Training Academy in Beltsville, Maryland. In 2006, he was assigned to the U.S. Presidential Protection Division during George W. Bush's second term. He remained on protective duty after Barack Obama became President, leaving in May 2011 to run for the U.S. Senate.Bongino's first book, Life Inside the Bubble, about his career as a Secret Service agent, was released in 2013. The book discusses his experiences protecting presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and investigating federal crimes along with his 2012 run for the U.S. Senate in Maryland.
Bongino was criticized by former colleagues at the Secret Service for using his Secret Service background as part of his run for political office and for his claim of having secret information based on conversations he overheard in the Obama White House. A former colleague criticized him for trying to use his proximity to President Obama in his political career: "He's trying to draw attention to himself and he's hijacking the Secret Service brand. That's all he's got going for him." Bongino said he had access to "high-level discussions" in the White House. Unnamed former colleagues said he "tends to exaggerate his importance on the presidential detail and exaggerate his proximity" and that "We don't sit in on meetings at the White House. We don't sit in on high-level meetings." In response to the criticism from an anonymous former colleague, Bongino stated "There's nothing confidential in the book" and "It's not a tell-all. It's my tale of the Secret Service."
Bongino has rejected claims that Barack Obama was born outside the United States.
Bongino's second book, The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine was published in January 2016.
Media
Bongino has been a radio host and commentator on both local and national radio programs. He has been a guest host for both the Sean Hannity and Mark Levin radio shows and sometimes fills in on WMAL-FM talk radio in Washington, D.C. and WBAL in Baltimore. He was a paid contributor to NRATV, until December 2018.Bongino has frequently appeared on Fox News' opinion programming and on the conspiracy theory website InfoWars. He guest-hosted Hannity's Fox News show in December 2018.
Bongino is a proponent of Spygate, a conspiracy theory alleging illegal spying on the Donald Trump 2016 campaign was perpetrated by Barack Obama's administration in his book Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.
In December 2019, Bongino launched an alternative to the Drudge Report known as the Bongino Report. Prior to the site's launch, he criticized Drudge for having "abandoned" Trump supporters.
Political views
In 2018, Bongino said of himself, "My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That's it." He is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.Bongino has called the investigation of the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections a "total scam," and is a proponent of the Spygate conspiracy theory. In May 2018, Bongino was quoted by President Donald Trump in one of his tweets, as Bongino attacked former CIA Director John O. Brennan. Bongino was quoted as saying Brennan "has disgraced the entire Intelligence Community. He is the one man who is largely responsible for the destruction of American's faith in the Intelligence Community and in some people at the top of the FBI." Bongino was also quoted as alleging that Brennan was "worried about staying out of jail."
In May 2018, after Republican Congressman Trey Gowdy and some conservative legal experts challenged Trump's claims that the FBI had spied on his 2016 presidential campaign, Bongino claimed Gowdy had been "fooled" by the Department of Justice. In February 2019, Bongino accused Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of attempting a coup against President Trump.
Bongino is a member of Groundswell, a coalition of conservative and libertarian activists working to advance conservative causes.
In 2019, Bongino published Exonerated: The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp. It was on The New York Times Best Seller list with an asterisk noting that the book benefited from bulk sales.
Political campaigns
2012 U.S. Senate election
Bongino ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2012. Former gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy was his campaign chairman. Bongino won the Republican primary on April 3, 2012, with 33.8 percent of the vote, defeating nine other candidates. He finished a distant second with 26.6% of the vote against incumbent Democrat Ben Cardin.2014 House of Representatives election
Bongino ran for the U.S. House of Representatives seat from Maryland's 6th Congressional District in the 2014 election against incumbent Democrat John Delaney. Bongino lost to Delaney by 1.5 percentage points. While Bongino carried four of the district's five counties, he could not overcome a 20,500-vote deficit in the district's share of Montgomery County in the outer suburbs of Washington.2016 House of Representatives election
After moving to Florida in 2015, Bongino contemplated running for the United States Senate and Florida's 18th congressional district in 2016. However, in June 2016, Bongino declared that he would seek the Republican nomination for Florida's 19th congressional district. He faced Chauncey Goss, a Sanibel City Councilman who sought the seat in 2012, and Francis Rooney, a businessman and former United States Ambassador to the Holy See, in the primary.In an August 2016 interview with a Politico reporter, Bongino went on a profanity laced rant against the reporter, who asked about a story in the Naples Daily News that Bongino said was dishonest. The recorded phone call was published by Politico. He later explained that he was under stress due to his wife's illness and said that the reporter had goaded him. Bongino placed third in the August 2016 primary, losing the nomination to Rooney.
Personal life
Bongino was born in Queens, New York City. Bongino graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School. Bongino attended Queens College in the city, where he earned both a bachelor's and master's degree in psychology, and Pennsylvania State University, where he earned a Master of Business Administration.Bongino is married to Paula Andrea, née Martinez, who was born in Colombia. They have two daughters. In 2012, Bongino and his wife operated three businesses from their home, selling martial arts apparel, designing websites, and consulting on security and risk management. While running for office in 2016, Bongino resisted talking about his business interests and said he and his wife had shut them down.
In 2015, Bongino moved from Severna Park, Maryland, to Palm City, Florida.