Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Sean Hannity's podcast audience this week that he deliberately planted bogus information during his time at the bureau, a move he said was designed to smoke out agents he suspected of leaking sensitive details to the press.
Bongino made the remarks on the Tuesday episode of "Hang Out with Sean Hannity," describing an agency he said was split between professionals doing honest work and insiders who quietly funneled information to reporters. He called the latter group "snakes" and said the problem was serious enough that he and FBI Director Kash Patel had to develop informal methods to figure out whom they could trust.
The claim amounts to a former senior FBI official publicly admitting he circulated disinformation within his own agency, not to deceive the public, but to identify the source of unauthorized disclosures. For anyone who has watched the FBI's credibility erode over the past decade, the admission lands as both confirmation and indictment: confirmation that the leaking culture inside the bureau was real, and an indictment of an institution that forced its own leadership to resort to counterintelligence tradecraft against fellow agents.
Bongino, as reported by The Hill, said he recognized the internal divide almost immediately when he joined the bureau. He described encountering two distinct groups of agents, one composed of dedicated professionals, the other populated by people whose loyalties ran somewhere other than the mission.
"There were two FBIs trying to help you solve the A, B and C problems, and that's FBI one and FBI two," Bongino said.
The second group, he said, was the problem. And identifying its members was not straightforward.
"And here's the problem, Sean. It wasn't always obvious which FBI they were in."
That ambiguity, Bongino explained, made the leaking problem especially corrosive. He said outside contacts sometimes vouched for agents who turned out to be untrustworthy. As Fox News detailed, Bongino and Patel struggled to sort reliable agents from those feeding information to the media, a task complicated by the bureau's sheer size and internal politics.
"Sometimes they would get it wrong too. It happened a couple times where they'd say 'Oh, you can trust John Smith,' right? And you trust John Smith, and then a week later, you see like a leak in the media, and you'd be like, I'm pretty sure that came from John Smith."
Bongino said the solution was to "start messing with people." He described sharing "innocuous" false details, information about his own whereabouts and schedule, with individuals he suspected of leaking. If those details later surfaced in media reports, the source was exposed.
"So, it was like we would play this, we had to play this little game."
He did not name the agents he suspected or specify which media outlets published the leaked material. But the method he described, planting unique, traceable details with individual suspects, is a classic counterintelligence technique, sometimes called a "canary trap." That a deputy director felt compelled to use it against his own colleagues says more about the bureau's internal rot than any outside audit could.
The FBI's leak problem is not a new grievance for conservatives. For years, current and former officials have described an agency where unauthorized disclosures to sympathetic reporters became a weapon of bureaucratic warfare, used to undermine political appointees, shape public narratives, and protect institutional turf. Bongino's account fits neatly into that pattern, even as it raises questions about the scope of the problem he encountered.
The broader issue of FBI leak investigations and internal betrayal has surfaced repeatedly in recent months, underscoring how deeply the bureau's trust deficit runs.
Bongino served at the FBI for nearly a year before leaving in January. His departure came amid a reported dispute with former Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, a subject that continues to generate intense public interest and skepticism about federal transparency.
The controversy surrounding those files has only grown. The release of millions of Epstein-related documents has deepened questions about what the government knew and when, and about who wanted that information kept quiet.
Bongino's time at the bureau drew sharp criticism from inside the agency itself. A 115-page report released in December by active-duty and retired FBI agents and analysts accused both Bongino and Patel of "spending too much time on social media and public relations." One source quoted in the report called Bongino "something of a clown."
That language is worth pausing on. The people leveling those accusations were, in at least some cases, the same institutional class Bongino says he was trying to root out. Whether the criticism reflects legitimate operational concerns or the frustrations of a bureaucracy resisting outside accountability depends entirely on which "FBI" the critics belonged to, a distinction Bongino himself said was maddeningly hard to draw.
Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel has faced his own battles. Patel sued The Atlantic for defamation after the magazine published a profile alleging a pattern of drinking, unexplained absences, and paranoia over losing his job. The lawsuit signals that the leadership team Bongino was part of is not content to absorb institutional attacks quietly.
The intelligence community's internal conflicts have spilled into public view in other ways, too. Recent disputes over oversight and accountability, including a whistleblower's successful court fight against State Department retaliation, suggest the problem extends well beyond any single agency.
About a month after stepping down from the FBI, Bongino returned to public life. He relaunched his daily two-hour talk show on Rumble and came back as a Fox News contributor, making his first appearance on Hannity's television program.
The speed of his return to media underscores a reality about modern Washington: the revolving door between government service and public commentary spins faster than ever. Bongino's critics will say his brief tenure and quick pivot back to broadcasting prove the 115-page report's point about priorities. His defenders will counter that a man willing to name the problem publicly, and describe the lengths he went to in order to fix it, is doing more for accountability than the anonymous sources who trashed him in a leaked report.
Federal law enforcement has faced no shortage of credibility challenges in recent years. From the handling of high-profile national security cases to ongoing questions about politicized investigations, the FBI's reputation with the American public, particularly conservative Americans, remains deeply damaged.
Bongino's podcast remarks raise as many questions as they answer. He did not identify the specific false details he planted. He did not name the agents he suspected. He did not say whether any of his traps led to formal disciplinary action or referrals. And he did not explain whether the leaking he described involved classified material or merely embarrassing internal information.
Those gaps matter. If the leaks involved classified intelligence, the agents responsible may have committed federal crimes. If the leaks were limited to office gossip and scheduling details, the problem is serious but different in kind. Bongino's account, vivid as it is, leaves that distinction unresolved.
The broader question of how federal agencies handle internal dissent and unauthorized disclosures continues to play out across multiple fronts. Complaints filed against senior intelligence officials, including a recent ethics complaint targeting the Director of National Intelligence, reflect a government where institutional loyalty and political alignment have become nearly indistinguishable.
None of this is normal. A deputy director of the FBI should not have to run counterintelligence operations against his own people. The fact that Bongino felt he had no better option tells you everything about the agency he walked into, and the one the American public is still paying for.