Analysis: Pam Bondi's botched handling of the Epstein files

CNN

5 days ago

The Trump administration's promises to release extensive and significant new information related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein appear to be petering out – depriving conspiracy-minded MAGA supporters of the smoking guns they have long sought as they've publicly tried to tie influential figures to Epstein's crimes.
And to the extent those MAGA supporters are disappointed, the Trump administration has itself to blame. That especially applies to Attorney General Pam Bondi.
The Justice Department posted a memo Monday that says there is no evidence Epstein was murdered or that he kept anything amounting to a much-anticipated 'client list.' The department does not plan to release any new documents on the matter, an official told CNN. Axios was first to report details of the DOJ and FBI's decision.
None of this is new or surprising to anyone who has followed the Epstein case closely. New York City's medical examiner had ruled the death a suicide. The attorney general in Trump's first term, Bill Barr, had come to the same conclusion, despite his initial suspicions of something more sinister. A Justice Department Inspector General report also pushed back on the idea the death was anything but a suicide, while criticizing staff failures that allowed such a thing to happen.
And the Miami Herald's Julie K. Brown, one of the best-sourced reporters on the Epstein case, reported earlier this year: 'Those who have worked with the FBI on the case for decades say there is no evidence Epstein kept a ledger or a list of clients who were involved with his sex trafficking operation.'
Still, the memo undercuts theories that continued to circulate, including that there was proof that influential figures were involved in Epstein's exploitation of underage girls. At their most pitched, these theories held that Epstein was able to blackmail those influential figures who appeared on a purported 'client list.'
They also undercut Bondi's personal rhetoric. The new memo's key findings are very different from how Bondi billed them. And they are merely the latest examples of Bondi being contradicted by the same Justice Department she leads.
Let's run through the examples.
The idea that Epstein kept a 'client list' that potentially implicated influential figures has become an article of faith in some circles. Key Republican lawmakers have treated its existence as an established fact and pushed for its release.
And a big reason for that was Bondi herself.
During a February 21 interview on Fox News, host John Roberts asked whether DOJ would release a 'list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.'
'Will that really happen?' Roberts asked.
Bondi responded: 'It's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that.'
In other words, Bondi didn't commit to releasing such a list, but she affirmatively indicated it existed and that it was in her possession. And the question was specifically about the purported list – not other files related to Epstein.
Bondi had another chance to downplay the existence of such a list during a later March 1 interview on Fox, but declined to do so.
Host Mark Levin suggested that Democratic-leaning officials in New York City might be withholding information because they 'don't like the names on the list' and that they were 'trying to protect a lot of names and individuals.'
Bondi leaned into the theory, saying she had 'not reviewed the information yet,' but added: 'I think it's very interesting that they withheld that from us.'
The Justice Department now says not only is there no evidence of blackmail, but there is no evidence of such a list.
'This systematic review revealed no incriminating 'client list,'' the DOJ memo says. 'There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.'
Elon Musk, who formerly served in the Trump administration and has previously alleged on social media that the 'real reason' officials have not made more Epstein files public is because Trump's name is in them, has appeared to take shots at Bondi on social media.
'What's the time? Oh look, it's no-one-has-been-arrested-o'clock again,' Musk posted on X around 4 a.m. eastern time on Monday.
In another puzzling claim, Bondi said there were 'tens of thousands of videos' of Epstein 'with children or child porn.'
Bondi first made the assertion on a secretly recorded video. Then she repeated the claim publicly, possibly in an effort to get ahead of that video's release.
'There are tens of thousands of videos of Epstein with children or child porn, and there are hundreds of victims,' Bondi said publicly on May 7.
But just a month later, FBI Director Kash Patel appeared to walk back Bondi's claim. He indicated to podcast host Joe Rogan there was no video of people committing crimes on Epstein's island.
'Is there video from the island?' Rogan asked.
'Not of what you want,' Patel said.
'So this narrative might not be accurate, that there's video of these guys doing this?' Rogan asked.
'Exactly,' Patel confirmed.
Patel added at another point: 'If there was a video of some guy or gal committing felonies on an island and I'm in charge, don't you think you'd see it?'
Bondi's allegation puzzled lawyers and law enforcement officials involved in Epstein's criminal cases who were unfamiliar with any such trove of videos, an AP investigation reported last week.
And now the new DOJ memo further undercuts Bondi's claim.
The memo cites 'over ten thousand downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography.' But that's both videos and images. And it appears to separate them from anything involving Epstein's presence.
Separately, it cites 'images and videos of victims who are either minors or appear to be minors' but only images of Epstein.
In other words, it never cites videos of Epstein, much less 'tens of thousands of videos.'
While the DOJ memo in the above instances suggests Bondi oversold the evidence, it suggests she publicly undersold findings in another area: the number of victims.
Bondi has on multiple occasions indicated there were around 250 victims.
'This will make you sick,' she told Fox in late February. 'Two hundred victims, 200. So we have well over – over 250 actually.'
In the Levin interview on March 1, she cited 'the 254 young girls, women who are victims of sex crimes and sex trafficking.' Two days later, she doubled down on that number in a Fox interview with Sean Hannity.
But the DOJ memo cites many more victims. It says its review 'confirmed that Epstein harmed over one thousand victims. Each suffered unique trauma.'