FBI Overhaul Begins: Patel and Bongino Promise to Dismantle the Deep Rot

After years of corruption and weaponization, new leadership vows to restore justice—but some aren’t convinced the clean-up is real.

In a rare interview with Maria Bartiromo, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino laid out the new path forward for the agency.

The conversation opened with a brutal reality: the FBI’s reputation is in shambles.

For years, the agency was hijacked by political operatives who targeted citizens and buried the truth.

Now, the cleanup begins.

Patel laid out his four-point mission:

“Crush violent crime. Defend the homeland. Rigorous organizational accountability. And aggressive constitutional oversight with Congress.”

He said the path forward depends on the people already inside the bureau—the ones who still believe in the mission.

“We already have the men and women here in the rank and file that want to do the work. That’s why we’re sending them into the field.”

And for the first time, Americans are getting a real look behind the curtain.

“This place was politicized. Congress has rightfully requested the documents—from Crossfire Hurricane to January 6 to the Richmond Catholic memo and more.”

“Now, finally, Americans are reading for themselves the documentation where a very select few leaders in the former FBI decided to politicize it.”

“We don’t need the deputy telling you it’s politicized. We want the American people to read it—and now they are.”

Patel didn’t just talk about transparency—he made a promise: it’s coming fast.

Americans are about to see exactly what past leadership tried to hide.

“We weren't here in the FBI in the last five years when we had statute of limitations that were still in play, where we could have investigated criminal conduct.”

“Most of these statute of limitations are five years old, and we will investigate criminal conduct where we find a righteous case to do so and the law and the facts allow us to.”

He said prior leadership failed to act—but now, it’s a different story.

“Could we have done more in the past? Sure, people before us could have. But what we can do now is continue to put out the documents and the information that these people withheld from the American public.”

And there’s still more they’re uncovering—some of it new even to them.

“As much as we know about Crossfire Hurricane, he and I just found out more last week, and we're continuing to work with Congress to put those documents out.”

Then came a stunning revelation.

“That's how vindictive the former leadership was. Not only did they bastardize the FISA process and lie to the American public, they withheld and hid documentation and put it in rooms where people weren't supposed to look.”

His message?

“It’s a good thing now we're here to clean it up and you're about to see a wave of transparency.”

“Just give us about a week or two.”

Bartiromo then brought up a topic most media outlets avoid—yet millions of Americans still want answers.

Why haven’t we learned more about the attempts on President Trump’s life?

Patel says there’s a legal reason for the silence.

“Two open, ongoing prosecutions. Two of the investigations are obviously closed because the individuals are dead, but there’s two live prosecutions… so we can’t get ahead of the federal court case.”

He said more details will come out soon—and confirmed they’re digging deep into any possible international connections.

“We have personally invested our time in making sure that we have looked at any possible international connections to terrorism and adversaries alike.”

That’s when Bongino jumped in.

“Kash is not kidding—we’ve been personally briefed extensively on every single detail, nugget, tendril of this case.”

One of those cases is already playing out in court. Bongino said it’s crucial not to interfere.

But he also responded to critics who think they’re hiding something.

“I’m not going to tell people what they want to hear. I’m going to tell you the truth—and whether you like it or not is up to you.”

“In some of these cases, the ‘there’ you’re looking for is not there. And I know people—I get it, I understand. It’s not there. If it was there, we would have told you.”

They’re not sitting on a bombshell.

Then came the most controversial topic of all: Jeffrey Epstein.

When Bartiromo pressed them on whether Epstein truly killed himself, both Patel and Bongino gave a clear—and highly disputed—answer.

Patel didn’t flinch.

“They have a right to their opinion,” he said.

“But as someone who’s been a public defender, a prosecutor, who’s worked in that prison system and been inside segregated housing——you know a suicide when you see one. And that’s what that was.”

Then Bongino jumped in—no hedging, no hesitation.

“He killed himself,” he said.

“Again, you want me to—I’ve seen the whole file.”

“He killed himself.”

It’s a conclusion that won’t sit well with many Americans.

But the interview ended on a much different note—with a message that hit home for families across the country.

After one of the largest child sex abuse crackdowns in FBI history, Bongino had a warning for the predators still out there.

“Yeah, that knock at the door, it's not Amazon. That's going to be us.”

Following a monthlong operation that rescued 115 children and led to 400 arrests, Bongino made it clear this is personal.

“When Kash and I put restoring justice together to get these mutts off the streets, these kiddie pornographers, these animals—I said, you know why this is going to matter to America? Because everyone in the room is a child or a parent, right?”

He said many of the offenders are already talking—and there’s more to come.

“We’ve got to go make their lives painful, these bad guys, and we locked up in a month, what, 400? We saved 115 kids, and you haven't even seen the beginning because those 400, a lot of them are talking.”

His final message was as direct as it gets.

“When you log on to that network next, you have no idea what we're doing.”

“You think you're safe in your dark web? I promise, you are ABSOLUTELY not safe. You have no idea what we can do.”

This was a signal from Bongino that the FBI is returning to its original roots of fighting crime and putting the bad guys behind bars.

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