Trump official walks back Jan. 6 conspiracy theory after Fox News confronts him

Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino walked back one of his conspiracy theories after being confronted by Fox News’ Sean Hannity.
A suspect accused of planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican national headquarters on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol was arrested Thursday, officials said. The arrest follows a nearly five-year investigation into the incident.
The arrest comes despite President Donald Trump and his allies largely dismissing the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. On his first day in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people charged in connection to the insurrection.
Conspiracy theories have circulated for years about who was responsible for the attack on the Capitol, with many pundits speculating, without evidence, that it was an “inside job.” Hannity pressed Bongino, a former right-wing podcaster, on Thursday about comments he made closely following the pipe bombing incident in 2021.
“You said, ‘there’s a massive cover up because the person that planted those pipe bombs, they don’t want you to know who it is, because it’s either a connected anti-Trump insider or an inside job.’ You said that long before you were even thought of as deputy FBI director,” Hannity told Bongino.
Bongino responded by walking back his past statement, emphasizing that he is now focused on the “facts.”
“Listen, I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions, that’s clear, and one day, I’ll be back in that space. But that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts,” Bongino said on “Hannity.”
He then lashed out at media outlets for reporting on the “collusion hoax,” a likely reference to the 2016 Russian interference investigation.
“I was looking out in the crowd today at the presser, and I saw a couple of media figures who, you and I both know, who promoted the other scandal, the collusion hoax. And I thought to myself, the difference between us and them is, we evolve as information and new inputs come out, we can produce different outputs, because that’s what we believe in,” Bongino said.
“We believe in facts and investigations guided by facts. There were people out there in that crowd, I’m sure, who still believe in this collusion fairy tale. So we’ll see. We’re going to be guided by the facts as this thing goes forward,” he added.
Earlier on Thursday, FBI Director Kash Patel was mocked for his comments on the Jan. 6 attack. He touted the work of the FBI in arresting a suspect after a nearly five-year investigation.
“When you attack American citizens, when you attack our institutions of legislation, when you attack our nation’s Capitol, you attack the very being of our way of life,” Patel said.
“And this FBI and this Department of Justice stand here to tell you that we will always refute it and combat it. We will provide the safest country the nation has ever seen under President Trump’s leadership here, and that’s what we did here today,” Patel added.