FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on Polygraphs

[George W. Maschke]

Dan Bongino

On Sunday, 23 February 2025, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he has chosen political commentator Dan Bongino, a former New York Police Department officer and U.S. Secret Service special agent, to serve as deputy director of the FBI.

Bongino's opinions on polygraphy may thus be a factor in FBI polygraph policy going forward. Regrettably, Bongino seems to be a believer in the evil art.

On 23 September 2024, after the killing of would-be Trump assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks in Pennsylvania and the arrest of would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh at the Trump International Golf Course near West Palm Beach, Florida, Bongino inferred that the U.S. government must be infiltrated by hostile agents and opined that the only solution is a polygraph dragnet.

Speaking to a $150,000 bounty that Routh had placed on Trump's head in a note found with him at the time of his arrest, Bongino said:

Where the hell is this guy getting this alleged hundred and fifty thousand dollars he claims to have to quote, "finish the job," and why the hell is the DOJ, that can't seem to want to release the Nashville shooter manifesto, release this one right away, sends out a Bat Signal: 150K anyone willing to kill Donald Trump!

Are you shittin' me bro'? Whose dumbass idea was it to release that?

Now, I have a quick solution now. And no one's gonna like it, even my friends may not. But I'm sorry, it's the only way.

Folks, everyone's gonna have to be polygraphed. It's gonna take forever, but with some of the DoD assets, everyone in the Capital Region, everyone in the D.C. Capital Region who works anywhere near, or anyone on the Trump detail, you're probably gonna have to be polygraphed again.

Folks, there is somethin' goin' on out there, and if they don't find the source here, the source of this infiltration into their network, if they don't find it, then this is not done. This is not done!

I want you all to understand that. "Dan, why do you keep talking about this?" 'Cause we may not have a campaign! You're not gonna have a campaign without a candidate!

There's no way two attackers knew exactly where the soft spots in the security plan were. There's no chance. And why is it that the Iranians, with a history of honeypotting people in Israel and around the world, takin' advantage of loner kind of losers, using honeypots?

This isn't a Jason Bourne novel, they take advantage of idiots with nothing to lose. You've got two guys that fit the profile who magically found holes in the Secret Service security plan, seeming to know in advance where the security wouldn't be, and nobody's asking questions?

[Anthony R]

What a convenient way to get the honest FBI agents who investigated J6 out of the way.  I did both federal and state employment and it is hard to permanently fire a tenured employee, therefore, the new management needs a way to get tenured J6 agents out the door. So, I suspect any agent involved in J6 will "fail" the polygraph.  Ethics be damned.  Maybe they can get Dan Ribbacoff to examine the black agents involved in J6.

[George W. Maschke]

Well, Dan Bongino did not last long as the FBI Deputy Director. He resigned effective early January 2026, having served in that position for less than a year. It's noteworthy that despite Bongino's previously expressed enthusiasm for polygraph screening, he himself was not polygraphed in connection with his FBI employment.

As William Turton and Christopher Bing reported for Politico on 14 November 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel granted Bongino a waiver from the polygraph:

https://www.propublica.org/article/fbi-kash-patel-dan-bongino-waived-polygraph

FBI Director Kash Patel granted waivers to Deputy Director Dan Bongino and two other newly hired senior FBI staff members, exempting them from passing polygraph exams normally required to gain access to America's most sensitive classified information, according to a former senior FBI official and several other government officials.

Bongino's role as the FBI's second-highest-ranking official means he is responsible for day-to-day operations of the agency, including green-lighting surveillance missions, coordinating with intelligence agency partners and managing the bureau's 56 field offices across the country. The deputy director receives some of the country's most closely held secrets, including the President's Daily Brief, which also contains intelligence from the CIA and the National Security Agency.

People familiar with the matter say his ascent to that position without passing a standard FBI background check was unprecedented. ProPublica spoke with four people familiar with the polygraph issues, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation and because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the details of FBI background checks.

Bongino was selected for the role at the FBI although he, like Patel, had no prior experience at the bureau. Bongino had previously served in the Secret Service and worked as a New York City police officer. But he later gained millions of fans and followers in conservative circles for television and podcast appearances, having taken over Rush Limbaugh's spot on numerous radio stations. Over the years, Bongino used those platforms to push conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and professed his allegiance to President Donald Trump while railing against the agency he now helps lead.

He's had a rocky tenure so far, marked by public fights with senior Cabinet officials and accusations that he leaked information to the press, which Bongino denied. In August, Trump appointed Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey as co-deputy director at the FBI, setting off speculation that the White House had lost faith in Bongino. But he remains in the job.

ProPublica could not determine whether Bongino sat for a polygraph exam or what its results were. Though the existence of a polygraph waiver is an indication he may not have passed the test, it is possible Bongino received a preemptive exemption, a former senior FBI official with knowledge of the vetting program told ProPublica.

When ProPublica sought comment from the FBI, the agency denied that Bongino or the other senior staff members failed polygraph tests. "It is false that the individuals you referenced failed polygraphs," wrote spokesperson Ben Williamson.

He added: "The FBI follows all laws and procedures on personnel security measures, and any implication otherwise is false. Furthermore, while the FBI does not comment on confidential security information, particularly in matters of personnel, this article is riddled with falsehoods — it misrepresents polygraph protocol, inaccurately portrays FBI security measures, and makes multiple false claims about FBI employees who have done nothing wrong."

ProPublica asked the FBI to specify what it considered to be false. The agency did not reply.

...

The rest of the article is worth reading in its entirety. There has to date been no public accounting for the reasons why Bongino (or the other two officials, Marshall Yates and Nicole Rucker, who were granted similar waivers) were exempted from the FBI's polygraph requirement.