3 theories behind Bondi and Patel adding a co-deputy to Bongino’s FBI role

On Monday, August 18, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey was appointed as co-deputy director of the FBI, a newly created position, to serve alongside Dan Bongino starting September 8.

This unusual move, announced by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, ignited a firestorm of speculation. Some theorize Bailey’s appointment is a prelude to Bongino's potential departure, or even Kash Patel’s, while others argue it aims to stabilize FBI leadership, advance Trump’s law and order agenda, or reshape the agency with politically aligned loyalists.

On a recent episode of “Blaze News: The Mandate,” Jill Savage, Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson, and senior politics editor Christopher Bedford dove into this controversy.

“I think fundamentally they need very talented people in extremely important positions to get the job done. ... [The FBI] is a large agency where a ton of reform is needed. It’s at the heart of the corruption that’s been allowed to fester in this country,” Peterson says. “So it would make sense to bring in someone who’s a very sharp, aggressive AG who’s done great work in Missouri and had a national impact.”

“That’s the positive, right? The negative is that there’s some things maybe that aren’t getting done that people think should get done, and they feel that there needs to be some change in how leadership is operating,” he adds.

Jill agrees there may be underlying factors behind Bailey’s sudden appointment. “Anytime you put ‘co-’ in front of something, it’s like, okay, what is actually happening right now?” she says.

Bedford suggests the new role might be a genuine effort to support Bongino, who, as the deputy director, has the enormous task of “[overseeing] the personnel of the FBI.”

“That’s tens of thousands of people that he’s got to deal with and got to manage. And Bongino, despite being a former officer, Secret Service agent, and despite having a very successful radio show and podcast, doesn’t have that kind of management experience,” he says.

The rumor in D.C., however, is that Bailey is there “to replace someone” — Bongino or perhaps even Kash Patel, Bedford says.

“That’s where it starts to get a little spicier because I think [replacing Patel] would start to really upset more people,” he adds, especially given Patel is the “main reason for why we have so much of this Russiagate information.”

Peterson, despite acknowledging Kash’s invaluable contributions to the Trump agenda, can’t deny that rumors are swirling that Patel’s leadership is lacking at the FBI.

“There is a lot of talk around town and elsewhere that that’s not happening and that some of these reports on the left, while no one wants to agree with them publicly, may have some validity to them in terms of how things are going over there at the FBI,” he says.

“We’ll have to wait and see, but the main thing I think we should take away from this is that Bailey is talented. Bailey is energetic, and they need more than two people at the top of this thing and whatever is going on over there. We need someone who is going to be aggressive and who’s going to actually clean house.”

To hear more of the conversation, watch the episode above.

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