Bongino Reveals Details Behind Viral ‘Shocked to My Core’ Post
Former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino says he was left “shocked to his core” after reviewing internal FBI documents tied to the bureau’s now-infamous Crossfire Hurricane investigation—an experience he says permanently altered his understanding of what occurred inside the agency.
Speaking Monday on “The Vince Show,” Bongino revisited a social media post he published in July 2025 that went viral, drawing more than 20 million views. In that post on X, Bongino wrote that he would “never be the same” after reviewing the materials.
According to Bongino, he was reading the documents late on a Friday night when the gravity of what he was seeing fully set in. The records, he explained, were directly related to Crossfire Hurricane, the FBI’s counterintelligence probe targeting President Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign over allegations of Russian interference.
“It was basically about Crossfire. I was just reading some stuff about Crossfire,” Bongino told host Vince Coglianese. “And… I was blown away… I lived in this kind of tiny apartment in D.C. … And I’m sitting there and I’m thinking to myself, ‘I couldn’t believe it happened here.’ You know, Vince, like having been a Secret Service agent, a police officer, and I hadn’t been in the FBI role that long, but it had been a few months.”
Bongino, who previously served as a Secret Service agent and local law enforcement officer before his time at the FBI, said what disturbed him most was how institutional safeguards failed so quickly under human pressure.
“I just thought, gosh, these guardrails just broke down because of people. People are guardrails, not robots… And I was just stunned at how many people just let this — just the incredibly poor decision-making,” he said. “It blew my mind… I got up the next day and I just fired that out… I was really shaken by the whole thing, how these guardrails broke down so quickly. It was astonishing. And I was — oh boy. Even now talking about it, I just remember that feeling. Like, oh my gosh, did this really happen? Yeah, that’s what that was about.”
Crossfire Hurricane, launched in 2016, investigated whether individuals associated with President Trump’s campaign coordinated with Russia. The probe later became a lightning rod for controversy, congressional scrutiny, and multiple internal and external reviews, fueling long-standing conservative concerns about politicization within federal law enforcement.
While Bongino declined to reveal specific details from the documents during the interview, he emphasized that their contents were significant enough to fundamentally change his perspective on the investigation and the FBI’s conduct. He indicated that he may discuss the matter further on his own program, “within reason.”
Bongino also announced that he will soon return to conservative media, revealing in a Monday X post that a “new version of The Dan Bongino Show” will launch on Feb. 2. The program will stream live exclusively on Rumble on weekdays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. EST.
According to a press release, the show “will expand on its legacy with a renewed focus on Washington insights, behind-the-scenes details from his time in government, and a message of hope and resilience in the conservative movement.” Episodes will be released on all major podcast platforms following the livestream.
“The new version of The Dan Bongino Show will expand on its legacy with a renewed focus on Washington insights, behind-the-scenes details from his time in government, and a message of hope and resilience in the conservative movement,” the release states.
Before returning to public service, Bongino was a leading conservative podcaster. Under President Trump, he later served as deputy director of the FBI, where he was involved in several high-profile Justice Department matters, including the release of files related to the late financier Jeffrey Epstein.
He also played a central role in the investigation into pipe bombs placed outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Jan. 5, 2021. Last month, Attorney General Pam Bondi said at a press conference that the arrest of a suspect in that case was “the best birthday present” Bongino could have received.