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By Holmes Lybrand, Evan Perez, Kristen Holmes, CNN

(CNN) — Deputy FBI director Dan Bongino is stepping down soon from the job after eight months marked by clashes with his boss, Attorney General Pamela Bondi, and fighting off the conspiracies he once fueled.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that Bongino is leaving the role.

“Oh, Dan, Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews, referring to Bongino’s radio show.

Trump did not elaborate on when Bongino is expected to depart.

Before the president’s remark Wednesday, Bongino was seen at a gingerbread house decorating contest at FBI headquarters.

Inside the White House and FBI, it has long been believed that Bongino would depart after a year. In recent days, Andrew Bailey, the co-deputy director, has taken over some of the meetings that Bongino was expected to handle.

Bongino has complained both publicly and privately about the tedious nature of the job and the toll it took on his personal life.

Some FBI officials believed Bongino would depart the agency after the arrest of a suspect in the 2021 pipe bomb case earlier this month. Bongino took a leading role in the case, which he was fixated on before joining the agency, dedicating many of his shows to conspiracy theories that claimed the planting of pipe bombs near Republicans and Democratic Party headquarters on the eve of January 6, 2021, was an inside job.

But in the days after the charges were brought, Bongino told officials he had not made up his mind and might stay through the start of the new year. Some officials inside the FBI were surprised by the President’s announcement Thursday.

The FBI declined to comment on Trump’s comments.

A former Secret Service agent who once protected President Barack Obama, Bongino came to the job after a lucrative podcasting career where he vocally supported Trump.

It was a sharp turn for a job that in recent decades has been held by a career agent, not a partisan appointee. The old career — which Bongino had vowed to return to — ended up being a thorn in the deputy director’s side as he tried to reshape the agency.

Earlier this year, Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel expressed frustrations to top Trump officials about how Bondi and the Justice Department handled the aborted release of documents related to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Bongino took it a step further and threatened to leave the agency after officials reneged on promises to release the documents.

Like Patel, Bongino favored releasing more documents. In a meeting with White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Bongino implied that he couldn’t serve

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Por Jackie Wattles, CNN

Una saga de varios meses protagonizada por el empresario tecnológico Jared Isaacman —la opción intermitente del presidente Donald Trump para dirigir la NASA— finalmente llegó a su fin, ya que el Senado aprobó su designación con 67 votos a favor y 30 en contra.

Isaacman, astronauta privado y CEO de la empresa de pagos Shift4, está listo para asumir la dirección de la NASA apenas unas semanas antes de que el organismo lance Artemis II, una misión que llevará a cuatro astronautas alrededor de la Luna y marcará el viaje más lejano de la humanidad en el espacio desde el fin del programa Apolo en 1972.

Cuando Trump eligió por primera vez a Isaacman para el cargo en la NASA a finales de 2024, la decisión generó entusiasmo entre los líderes de la industria espacial, quienes lo ven como un agente de cambio. Sin embargo, la designación también despertó preocupaciones sobre posibles conflictos de interés.

Desde que fundó Shift4 en 1999, a los 16 años, Isaacman se ha destacado en la industria espacial autofinanciando vuelos experimentales en órbita terrestre. Ha viajado al espacio dos veces, ambas en colaboración con SpaceX, la empresa de Elon Musk.

Estas misiones le han dado la imagen de ser un audaz tomador de riesgos que impulsa la transición de la industria espacial del financiamiento gubernamental hacia la empresa privada. Sus partidarios esperan que, como jefe de la NASA, fomente la competencia entre las compañías espaciales, las alinee con los objetivos del organismo y enfoque los esfuerzos en tecnologías de vanguardia.

Sin embargo, el nombramiento de Isaacman no está exento de controversia.

Algunos consideran que sus vínculos con Musk y SpaceX son demasiado estrechos. El lunes, el senador Edward Markey, demócrata de Massachusetts, criticó a SpaceX por negarse a revelar cuánto pagó Isaacman a la empresa por sus vuelos al espacio.

“Esto es extremadamente sospechoso. SpaceX tiene miles de millones que ganar con un administrador de la NASA favorable, y es justo que el pueblo estadounidense conozca el grado de relación financiera entre Isaacman y SpaceX”, dijo Markey en un comunicado. “A veces, si parece corrupción, suena a corrupción y huele a corrupción, es simplemente corrupción”.

Markey solicitó que SpaceX liberara a Isaacman de un acuerdo de confidencialidad que le impedía proporcionar directamente la información al Senado.

Divulgaciones financieras recientes indican que el acuerdo vigente de Isaacman con SpaceX para un programa llamado Polaris supera los US$ 50 millones. También reportó más de US$ 5 millones en ganancias de capital por una inversión en SpaceX.

Durante la audiencia, Isaacman intentó minimizar su relación con Musk.

“Lideré dos misiones al espacio con SpaceX porque es la única organización que puede enviar astronautas al espacio y traerlos de regreso desde el retiro del transbordador”, dijo Isaacman. “En ese sentido, mi relación no es diferente a la de la NASA”.

La primera designación de Isaacman para el cargo de jefe de la NASA fue rescindida abruptamente en medio de un desacuerdo entre Trump y Musk a principios de este año, informó previamente CNN.

Su nombramiento fue restituido en noviembre cuando la relación entre Trump y Musk pareció mejorar.

Durante su segunda audiencia de confirmación a principios de este mes, Isaacman enfrentó preguntas sobre el documento Proyecto Athena, un esquema de 62 págin

By Pete Muntean, Katelyn Polantz, CNN

(CNN) — The US government now admits failures by the pilots of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and a controller in the Reagan National Airport tower during the January 29 midair collision over the Potomac River that killed 67 people.

The new admission is part of court documents filed by the Department of Justice in United States District Court in Washington, DC, on Wednesday in a civil lawsuit brought earlier this year by the family of a passenger killed on American Eagle flight 5342.

“The United States admits that it owed a duty of care to Plaintiffs, which it breached,” the new filing says, setting up the ability for the families to seek damages.

The concession in the 209-page court filing is an unexpected admission from the military as the National Transportation Safety Board continues its independent investigation of the crash.

A total of 67 people were killed in the midair collision after the Army crew told controllers in the airport control tower that they would maintain “visual separation” from flight 5342 which was about to land at National Airport.

“The United States admits pilots flying PAT25 failed to maintain proper and safe visual separation from AE5342,” the court filing says.

The US government also admits in the suit that an air traffic controller in the tower “did not comply” with an FAA order governing air traffic control procedure.

There’s still a fair amount of finger-pointing and legal distinctions the Justice Department is making in court, despite its admissions on Wednesday.

In the lengthy response to the lawsuit, federal government lawyers admit the Black Hawk crew’s choices in flight were a “cause-in-fact and a proximate cause of the accident and the death.”

They also argue that the federal air traffic controllers around the DC-area airport can’t be held liable because they weren’t the cause of the crash.

The commercial airlines are still fighting the lawsuit, asking for it to be dismissed by the court, and have not made the same admissions the federal government did on Wednesday.

During public hearings this summer, the NTSB focused on cultural issues in the Army’s 12th Aviation Battalion, possible errors in the altimeters on board the helicopter, and whether the layout of helicopter routes near the airport created an accident waiting to happen.

A final report and probable cause from the NTSB is not expected until next month at the earliest.

Lawyers representing victims’ families say the crash was caused by “collective failures” by the US government that “caused the mid-air collision that resulted in the senseless and tragic deaths of 67 individuals” and that government personnel – including controllers in the air traffic control tower – “should have known, that the airport approaches, and the airspace in the vicinity of Washington D.C.’s Reagan National Airport (‘DCA’), presented certain safety risks, specifically including the possibility of a mid-air collision.”

They also maintain that the crew of the helicopter on a low-altitude training mission were using night-vision goggles which “unreasonably distracted them” and “limited their field of vision.”

The federal government, in its filing, admitted “the airspace near DCA is busy at times and the risk of midair collision cannot be reduced to zero.”

In a statement, a US Army spokesperson said, “The Army understands and respects the need for families to receive more information regarding the tragic DCA crash. We acknowledge that many individuals are still seeking answers about the incident and the measures being taken to prevent a similar tragedy.

A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment beyond the court filing.

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