Dan Bongino says he plans to resign as FBI deputy director in January, ending his short tenure.

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Wednesday that he will resign from the bureau next month, ending a short and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with the Justice Department over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and was forced to reconcile the realities of his law enforcement job with the provocative claims he made in his previous role as a popular podcast host.

Read more: Conservative media personality and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino has been selected as deputy director of the FBI

The departure, which was expected, will be among the most notable resignations in the Trump administration. This comes as FBI leadership has come under fire over Director Kash Patel’s use of a government aircraft for personal purposes and social media posts about active investigations.

Bongino was always an unconventional choice for the FBI’s No. 2 job, a position that historically entailed overseeing the day-to-day operations of the office and was usually held by a career agent. Although he had previously worked as a New York City police officer and a Secret Service agent, neither he nor Patel had any FBI experience before being selected for their jobs.

However, Bongino was appointed to the position in March by President Donald Trump after years as a far-right podcast host, where he used his platform to repeatedly attack the FBI and encourage conspiracy theories related to the Epstein sex trafficking case and the pipe bombs that were discovered in Washington on January 6, 2021.