Former FBI Agent Warns Bureau Is Heading for Disaster If Bongino Resigns Over Epstein Files Fallout

A former FBI agent warned that the bureau would struggle with day to day operations if deputy director Dan Bongino were to resign from his position.

Former FBI Agent Michael Feinberg appeared on CNN on Tuesday in conversation with host Kaitlan Collins to discuss the impact of the Trump administration's handling of files pertaining to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.

"The director is very much the public facing leader of the bureau, but in terms of day to day operations, most of that actually falls on the deputy's plate. So if [Dan Bongino] is going to throw a tantrum any time he doesn't like the direction that his superiors at the Department of Justice are urging him to go, the FBI is in for a bit of instability and a bit of trouble," Feinberg responded.

"When it comes to what that looks like every day, he was back at work today, it seems like right now he is not resigning and not being pushed out of this role. When you see the gap between the leadership at the FBI and the leadership at the Justice Department, what impact do you think that has?" Collins asked.

"It causes a lack of confidence in your most senior managers and leaders at the FBI. I'm not going to tell you that the relationship between what we refer to as 'main justice,' and the individuals at the Hoover building was always seamless of frictionless. It wasn't," he responded.

"There was a lot of disagreement on how to move forward with sensitive or high profile cases. But there was never really a doubt by the workforce that all the individuals in those debates, regardless of which building they sat in, they were sober, pragmatic adults who, at the end of the day, wanted the best thing for their country. What we have now are three individuals, the attorney general, the director of the FBI and the deputy director, who are fighting over, what seems to me and I'd imagine to most Americans, to be a baseless conspiracy theory that is distracting from the urgent work that the FBI needs to be focusing on," he concluded.

Senior Trump administration officials have received a lot of backlash over their handling of files pertaining to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Attorney general Pam Bondi and Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino allegedly got into a heated exchange last week after the former accused the latter of leaking a story to the press stating that the FBI wanted to release the Epstein files, and were being prevented from doing so by other administration staff members.

The fallout from the incident was intense enough that Bongino allegedly told others he was considering tendering his resignation.

"The whole thing has been a complete mess and no one is happy," a source briefed on the matter told CNN.