By Associated Press’s Eric Tucker
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the face of growing criticism from conservative online personalities and far-right influencers over the Justice Department’s sudden refusal to release more documents from the Jeffrey Epstein sex-trafficking investigation, President Donald Trump jumped to Attorney General Pam Bondi’s defense on Tuesday.
At a White House Cabinet meeting, Bondi was asked about Epstein by a reporter. Trump interrupted and reprimanded the reporter, asking, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?” People have been talking about this guy for years.
“It seems like a desecration at a time like this, when we’re experiencing some of the greatest success and tragedy with what happened in Texas,” he continued.
The remarks seemed to indicate Bondi’s job security going forward and amounted to a scathing criticism of Trump supporters who have demanded her resignation and ridiculed her for allegedly failing to reveal damning documents from the Epstein investigation. The Justice Department stated in a two-page memo Monday that there is no such thing as an Epstein client list, which Bondi once hinted was on her desk for review. This further infuriated conservative opponents who had been looking for evidence of a government cover-up.
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Following the failure of her first, much-anticipated document dump to yield disclosures, Bondi has been under pressure. In February, binders titled The Epstein Files: Phase 1 and Declassified, which included documents that were essentially already in the public domain, were given to far-right leaders who had been invited to the White House.
Bondi stated that officials were looking through a truckload of previously suppressed evidence that she claimed the FBI had turned over after the initial release failed, which increased hopes for future releases.
However, the Justice Department stated in a memo released on Monday that no more disclosure would be appropriate or justified following a months-long evaluation of the government’s available evidence. According to the police, just a small portion of the data would have been made public had Epstein been tried since a court sealed off a large portion of it to protect the victims.
The memo’s sole piece of evidence was a video that was supposed to provide unambiguous proof that the rich banker had committed suicide while incarcerated in 2019, but even that revelation did little to quell conspiracy theorists who think he was murdered.
Since Bondi hinted that such a record was on my desk for review in a February Fox News interview, the department’s client list revelation was particularly upsetting to conservative influencers and internet sleuths. Instead of mentioning a specific client list, Bondi said on Tuesday that she had been referring to the Epstein case file as being on her desk.
She said, “That’s what I meant by that.”
She also supported her previous public claims that the FBI was looking through tens of thousands of tapes showing Epstein with kids or engaging in child porn.Last week, the Justice Department’s reluctance to offer clarification and the unresolved issues surrounding those films were covered by the Associated Press.
The letter released on Monday made reference to over 10,000 downloaded movies and photographs of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography, but it made no indication that the recordings in the government’s possession showed Epstein with children.
She claimed that they were child porn that Jeffrey Epstein, who is nasty, had downloaded.
She claimed that a truckload of evidence was handed to the agency months ago, but she did not explain why the department was unable to provide additional files from that evidence.
