Ex-Trump Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino warned YouTube host Megyn Kelly that the “mass deportations hardliners” are being ousted from President Donald Trump‘s administration.

Their conversation came on the heels’ of the resignation of Mike Banks, a top Trump Border Patrol official. He has been the subject of a number of sex tourism allegations.

“It’s just time,” Banks told Fox News reporter Bill Melugin. “I feel like I got the ship back on course. From the least secure disastrous chaotic border to the most secure border this country has ever seen. Time to pass the [sic] reigns, 37 years its time to enjoy the family and life.”

Kelly asked Bovino what he makes of Banks’ resignation.

“Several things there, Megyn, I talked to Chief Banks about 30 minutes before coming on your show, and he was quite gracious in what he was saying there,” Bovino said. “What I will say is that Chief Banks and I are both mass deportations people — just like Kristi Noem, Corey Lewandowski and others — mass deportations folks, and we’re all no longer employed by Department on Homeland Security. What does that tell you?”

Bovino himself was reportedly reassigned to California two days after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. In January, The Atlantic cited sources who claimed “he is expected to retire soon.”

He continued:

So when we talk about politicians and politics, none of us were politicians or engaged in politics, but that’s a very dirty business, a very tough business. We’re all no longer working for Department of Homeland Security. We are all mass deportation hardliners, and I use that term with great pride. Am I an immigration hardliner? You bet. Mike Banks was a fantastic immigration hardliner. And the same thing that happened to Kristi Noem is now happening to Mike Banks. All of a sudden, they pull a rabbit out of their hat, and these individuals, you know, oh, my gracious, they’re the worst thing since sliced bread. That’s what I think about what just happened to Mike Banks. As a matter of fact, I think that prostitution thing had been investigated many years ago, and he was cleared. So, that’s what they’re not telling you there.

Mediaite could not find any currently available, public documentation suggesting Banks had previously been investigated and cleared of such allegations.

In response to Bovino’s comments, Kelly noted: “There’s a reason that that wound up in a conservative newspaper, Washington Examiner, when it did, in other words, weeks before he would resign.”

Bovino vehemently assented.

“This stuff doesn’t happen just by chance,” he said. “There’s a lot of snakes, a lot of swamp creatures still out there. So careful, America, still some swamp creatures out there. And before we go mass deportations, and before we return to hardline immigration, those snakes need leave.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!