The FBI spent years leaking against Donald Trump and nobody was ever held accountable.
Now Dan Bongino just revealed exactly how he and Kash Patel went about hunting the snakes.
And what he told Sean Hannity is something the Deep State hoped he would never say out loud.
How Bongino and Kash Patel Discovered the FBI Had Been Weaponized From Within
Dan Bongino walked through the door of FBI headquarters in March 2025, and within weeks he knew he was operating inside two entirely different organizations.
"There were two FBIs trying to help you solve the A, B and C problems, and that's FBI one and FBI two," he said on Hang Out with Sean Hannity.
Half the bureau were agents he felt "honored" to be in the room with – the men and women working Violent Crimes Against Children and violent crime fugitive task forces.
The other half was something else entirely.
"And then you had this other FBI," Bongino said, "which was populated with, to say, unfortunately, 'snakes' is being nice."
This was not a theoretical problem.
Within weeks, Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel were being burned by the very people they had been told to trust – and information they shared in confidence was showing up in press reports before they could act on it.
"It happened a couple times where they'd say, 'Oh, you can trust John Smith,'" Bongino said. "And you trust John Smith, and then a week later you see a leak in the media and you'd be like, 'I'm pretty sure that came from John Smith.'"
They had walked into a bureaucracy that spent nearly a decade working against Trump, and they couldn’t tell which side of it they were talking to.
The FBI Leakers Who Destroyed Careers and Never Faced a Single Charge
This is not new and Bongino knew it walking in.
The FBI intercepted General Michael Flynn's calls with the Russian ambassador, fed the contents to reporters, and the resulting coverage was built on deliberate misrepresentation – Flynn did nothing wrong, and the case against him collapsed but not before he lost his home, his job, and his reputation.
No one was charged.
The leakers who handed transcripts of Trump's private calls with foreign leaders to reporters were never publicly identified, and no one was charged for that either.
Operation Arctic Frost – the FBI's years-long secret surveillance of Republican members of Congress – ran behind nondisclosure orders so airtight that none of the targets knew they were being watched.
No arrests or charges.
Peter Strzok inserted political bias into FBI investigations of Trump and texted about an "insurance policy" in case Trump won the election.
He was fired – and then paid a settlement.
The Canary Trap Bongino Used to Smoke Out the Leaker
Bongino didn’t wait to get burned again.
He invented a piece of fake information about his own schedule and fed it to one person.
Then he waited.
When the fabricated detail appeared in media coverage, he had his answer.
"It was like we would play this little game," Bongino said.
Intelligence professionals call this a canary trap – or a barium meal test, the name MI5 has used for the technique for decades and the method Tom Clancy made famous in Patriot Games.
The premise is simple: give a different version of a secret to each suspect and see which version gets published.
The fact that Bongino had to run this operation inside the FBI, against his own agents, is the most honest description of the Deep State anyone has offered in years.
It’s not shadowy elites in a smoke-filled room.
It’s a badge, a security clearance, and a reporter's phone number – used to protect the bureaucracy from the people elected to lead it.
Kash Patel Is Still Inside the FBI and the Cleanup Is Not Finished
Bongino officially stepped down January 3, 2026, after ten months at the bureau.
Trump said simply: "Dan did a great job."
Patel was more specific – calling Bongino the best partner he could have asked for in rebuilding the FBI and saying he not only completed his mission but far exceeded it.
The results back that up.
Under Bongino and Patel, FBI arrests jumped 197% from 2024 to 2025 – from 34,000 to 67,000 – while violent crime arrests doubled to more than 30,000.
Bongino also personally briefed eight Republican senators in October on documents proving the FBI had secretly tracked their phone records under Christopher Wray.
The good FBI was putting criminals away.
The bad FBI was feeding reporters.
Kash Patel is still in that building, and everyone who was part of the bad FBI now knows something they did not know before Bongino arrived: the man on the other side of the leak can play the game too.
Sources:
- Madison Colombo, "Dan Bongino reveals how he trapped 'snakes' inside FBI to stop media leaks," Fox News, April 28, 2026.
- Bob Hoge, "Dan Bongino Dishes on the 'Two FBIs,' Reveals the Genius Tactic He Used to Expose the Rats," RedState, April 28, 2026.
- Kash Patel, "FBI Director Kash Patel: One year later, crime is down and America is safer," Fox News, February 20, 2026.
- "Dan Bongino officially leaves FBI deputy director role after less than a year, returns to 'civilian life,'" Fox News, January 4, 2026.
- Margot Cleveland, "Deep State Faces No Accountability For Years Of Targeting Trump," The Federalist, March 9, 2026.
