Dan Bongino

Daniel John Bongino (born December 4, 1974) is an American far-right[1][2] political commentator, radio show host, author, politician, former New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer and former Secret Service agent. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress as a Republican in 2012, 2014, and 2016.

Dan Bongino
Bongino in 2016
Personal details
Born
Daniel John Bongino

(1974-12-04) December 4, 1974
New York City, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse(s)Paula Martinez
Children2
EducationQueens College (BS, MS)
Pennsylvania State University (MBA)
WebsiteOfficial website

Early life and education

Bongino was born and raised in Queens, New York City.[3][1] He graduated from Archbishop Molloy High School.[4]

He 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.[5]

Career

NYPD

Bongino worked for the New York City Police Department from 1995 to 1999.[6]

Secret Service and book publication

Bongino joined the United States Secret Service in 1999 as a special agent,[6][1] 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 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.[6]

Bongino's first book, Life Inside the Bubble, about his career as a Secret Service agent, was published 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.[7]

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.[8][9][3] A former colleague criticized him for trying to use his proximity to President Barack 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."[8] 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."[10] He rejected Birtherism, the claims that President Obama was born outside the United States.[11]

His second book, The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine was published in January 2016.[12]

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.[13][14][15]

He has frequently appeared on Fox News' opinion programming and on the conspiracy theory website InfoWars.[3] He guest hosted Hannity's Fox News show in December 2018.[16]

Bongino is a proponent of Spygate, a conspiracy theory alleging illegal spying on Donald Trump's 2016 campaign was perpetrated by Barack Obama's administration, and published a book on the subject titled Spygate: The Attempted Sabotage of Donald J. Trump.[17][18]

In December 2019, Bongino launched the website Bongino Report as an alternative to the conservative website Drudge Report.[19] Prior to the site's launch, he criticized Drudge Report founder Matt Drudge for having "abandoned" Trump supporters.[20]

Bongino's posts on Facebook are routinely among the most shared on the platform.[21]

Investing

Bongino publicly announced in June 2020 that he had purchased an "ownership stake" of unspecified value in Parler, an alternative social media platform popular among Trump supporters, conservatives, and the far-right.[22][23][24]

Political views

In 2018, Bongino said of himself, "My entire life right now is about owning the libs. That's it."[25][3][26] He is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.[16][27]

Bongino has called the investigation of the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections a "total scam,"[28] and is a proponent of the Spygate conspiracy theory.[29] In May 2018, he was quoted by Trump in a tweet, as saying that former CIA Director John 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."[30] Bongino was also quoted as alleging that Brennan was "worried about staying out of jail".[30]

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.[31] In February 2019, he accused Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein of attempting a coup against Trump.[32]

According to Mother Jones, Bongino is a member of Groundswell, a group of conservative activists working to advance conservative causes.[33]

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 indicating the book benefited from bulk sales.[34] In August 2020, he denied that his book benefited from bulk sales, maintaining that the only event at which books were bought in bulk took place over a month after his book appeared on the list.[35]

Bongino was a strong critic of face mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic,[1] claiming that face masks are "largely ineffective."[27] During the 2020 election, he promoted false claims of voter fraud.[27] After the media called 2020 presidential election, Bongino backed Trump's claims of election fraud.[36]

Bongino reportedly told the House Judiciary Committee during hearings on police brutality that efforts to reduce the funding of police departments were an "abomination" that should be dropped "before someone gets hurt".[37][38]

Political campaigns

2012 U.S. Senate election
Main article: 2012 United States Senate election in Maryland

Bongino ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2012.[39] Former gubernatorial candidate Brian Murphy was his campaign chairman.[6] 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.[40]

2014 House of Representatives election
Main article: 2014 United States House of Representatives elections in Maryland § District 6

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 two 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.[41][42]

2016 House of Representatives election
Main article: 2016 United States House of Representatives elections in Florida § District 19
Bongino speaking at an event in February 2016

After moving to Florida in 2015, Bongino contemplated running for the United States Senate and Florida's 18th congressional district in 2016.[43][44] However, in June 2016, Bongino declared that he would seek the Republican nomination for Florida's 19th congressional district.[45] 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.[46] The recorded phone call was published by Politico.[47] He later explained that he was under stress due to his wife's illness and said that the reporter had goaded him.[48] He placed third in the August 2016 primary, losing the nomination to Rooney.[49]

Personal life

Bongino is married to Paula Andrea, née Martinez, who was born in Colombia. They have two daughters. In 2012, he and his wife operated three businesses from their home, selling martial arts apparel, designing websites, and consulting on security and risk management.[50] While running for office in 2016, Bongino resisted talking about his business interests and said he and his wife had shut them down.[51]

Having lived in Severna Park, Maryland, since 2002,[50] Bongino moved to Palm City, Florida, in 2015.[52][51]

Cancer diagnosis

On September 23, 2020, Bongino announced that a seven-centimeter tumor had been found in his throat. He added that he was unsure if the tumor was cancerous or benign, but would fly to New York on September 25 for further screening.[53] On October 2, he said that he received a "bad phone call" from doctors, and announced that he would be undergoing surgery on October 7.[54]

Following his surgery, he tweeted that the "entire tumor" was removed from his neck, but that he very likely had lymphoma. He said that he would be receiving treatment in the future.[55] On October 16, he confirmed that he received an official diagnosis of Hodgkin's lymphoma, adding that he would be continuing treatment in consultation with his doctors.[56]

Electoral history
2016 Florida's 19th Congressional District Republican Primary[57]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Francis Rooney 46,800 52.73
Republican Chauncey Goss 26,520 29.88
Republican Dan Bongino 15,434 17.39
Total votes 88,754 100.00
2014 Maryland's 6th Congressional District General Election[58]
Party Candidate Votes %
Democratic John Delaney (incumbent) 94,704 49.7
Republican Dan Bongino 91,930 48.2
Green George Gluck 3,762 2.0
Total votes 190,536 100.00
2014 Maryland's 6th Congressional District Republican Primary[59]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Dan Bongino 23,933 83.5
Republican Harold W. Painter, Jr. 4,718 16.5
Total votes 28,651 100
United States Senate election in Maryland, 2012[60]
Party Candidate Votes % ±%
Democratic Ben Cardin (incumbent) 1,402,092 55.41 +1.20
Republican Dan Bongino 674,649 26.66 −17.53
Independent Rob Sobhani 420,554 16.62 N/A
Libertarian Dean Ahmad 30,672 1.21 +1.21
N/A Others (write-in) 2,583 0.10 +0.05
Majority 727,443 100.00
Turnout 2,530,550 68.23
Democratic hold Swing
United States Senate Election in Maryland, 2012 Republican Primary[61]
Party Candidate Votes %
Republican Dan Bongino 66,561 33.8
Republican Richard J. Douglas 55,907 28.4
Republican Joseph Alexander 17,567 8.9
Republican Bro Broadus 10,503 5.3
Republican Rick Hoover 10,241 5.2
Republican John B. Kimble 10,088 5.1
Republican David Jones 8,002 4.1
Republican Corrogan R. Vaughn 7,869 4.0
Republican William Thomas Capps, Jr. 6,768 3.4
Republican Brian Vaeth 3,602 1.8
Total votes 204,268 100

Publications
  • Bongino, Dan (November 19, 2013). Life inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away from It All. WND Books. ISBN 1-938067-36-3. OCLC 858126450.
  • Bongino, Dan (January 12, 2016). The Fight: A Secret Service Agent's Inside Account of Security Failings and the Political Machine. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-08298-5. OCLC 924683173.
  • Bongino, Dan (October 6, 2020). Follow the Money: The Shocking Deep State Connections of the Anti-Trump Cabal. New York: Post Hill Press. ISBN 9781642936599.

References
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  2. Link, Devon (January 19, 2021). "Fact check: Biden said he plans to increase COVID-19 small business relief to people of color and women". USA Today. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
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  4. Bongino, Dan [@dbongino] (January 24, 2019). "I attended St. Pancras for grammar school and Archbishop Molloy for high school" (Tweet). Retrieved April 14, 2020 – via Twitter.
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  29. Broderick, Ryan (November 20, 2019). "There Are Two Separate Impeachment Hearings Happening Right Now — And Republicans Are Winning Theirs". BuzzFeed News. Archived from the original on November 16, 2020. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
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Party political offices
Preceded by
Michael Steele		 Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland
(Class 1)
2012		 Succeeded by
Tony Campbell
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