Laura Loomer<\/a> \u2013 who met separately in recent months with both Trump and Vice President JD Vance \u2014 continued to call for Bondi\u2019s dismissal over the episode.\n <\/p>\n\n Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon dedicated much of his Monday \u201cWar Room\u201d show to the memo, questioning the administration\u2019s dedication to transparency. Bannon later argued to CNN the federal investigation appears to have been mismanaged.\n <\/p>\n
\n A Trump adviser called the memo\u2019s release a \u201cpolitical nightmare\u201d and suggested it could\u2019ve been published before the holiday weekend when fewer people might see it \u2013 or perhaps even after the 2026 midterm elections.\n <\/p>\n
\n Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson argued Bondi is \u201ccovering up crimes, very serious crimes by their own description,\u201d on his podcast.\n <\/p>\n
\n Roseanne Barr took aim at Trump himself.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cMr. President- Yes, we still care about Epstein. Is there a time to not care about child sex trafficking? Read the damn room,\u201d she posted on X.\n <\/p>\n
\n The search for explosive deep-state secrets hidden inside the federal Epstein investigation began coming apart weeks into the second Trump administration.\n <\/p>\n
\n By mid-March, as hundreds of FBI agents were ordered to work overnights and weekends to review thousands of pages and hours of video from the investigation, there were no bombshells in the files. It became clear that officials had no reason to change the conclusion reached under Attorney General William Barr, who had himself reviewed some of the materials, that the sex offender had died by suicide, according to people familiar with the matter.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Epstein case has long been the focus of conspiracy theories, fueled by his death inside a federal prison in 2019 while he awaited trial. The financier\u2019s association with prominent and powerful figures, ranging from former President Bill Clinton to Trump, fed suspicions that other high-profile people were involved in his crimes and someone might be covering up their identities.\n <\/p>\n
\n It was amid that swirl of intrigue that officials embarked on their quest to once and for all release documents to answer many of the questions that have grown into a cottage industry on the internet.\n <\/p>\n
\n But a major problem soon emerged: Most of the material still being held by investigators could not be released under federal law, which protects the privacy of Epstein victims and people not charged with crimes. FBI and Justice officials realized that releasing thousands of pages blacked out by redactions wouldn\u2019t help resolve the issue on right-wing social media, where Trump allies have fanned conspiracy theories about Epstein.\n <\/p>\n
\n The overall goal \u2013 transparency promised by the president \u2013 has been accomplished, a Justice official said. But the slow-rolling fiasco could have been avoided, some officials acknowledge.\n <\/p>\n
\n The first public signs of trouble came in late February when Bondi helped orchestrate a scoop for MAGA social media influencers called to the White House, presenting them with binders of documents.\n <\/p>\n
\n But those binders contained hundreds of pages that mostly had been public for years.\n <\/p>\n
\n The episode landed with a thud among many longtime followers of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein, and some who had once championed the effort turned on Bondi, accusing her online of withholding damaging information.\n <\/p>\n
\n Loomer told CNN that a White House adviser urged her and other prominent Trump supporters earlier this year to soften their criticism. She did not identify the adviser. \u201cWe were told to leave her alone,\u201d Loomer said. \u201cBut it\u2019s gotten to a point where it\u2019s unsustainable.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The lack of substantive revelations in the binders wasn\u2019t only a surprise to the MAGA faithful who lashed out immediately, but also to the attorney general and other Justice and White House officials.\n <\/p>\n
\n Bondi\u2019s embarrassment showed in a sharply worded memo to Patel, who had recently been confirmed and who had played only a minimal role in the White House Epstein file debacle, according to people familiar with the matter.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents,\u201d Bondi wrote, adding that she was surprised to later learn that there were thousands of documents held by the FBI\u2019s New York office, which had led the Epstein investigation. She ordered the additional documents produced to her office by 8 a.m. the next day, saying, \u201cI am directing you to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the FBI was not followed.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But Bondi, Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino found themselves under attack online from so-called Epstein truthers. And every time they posted on social media, they were barraged by erstwhile supporters demanding the Epstein files.\n <\/p>\n
\n Bongino and Patel are aware of the disappointment from the right-wing media stars among whom they were formerly major players, a person familiar with the matter said. \u201cThere\u2019s the world of social media and then there\u2019s the real world,\u201d a person familiar with their thinking said. \u201cUltimately, some people aren\u2019t going to like how it is.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n By May, Bongino and Patel had begun trying to manage expectations. In Fox News interviews, they said plainly that Epstein had committed suicide.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe evidence we have in our files clearly indicates it was in fact a suicide,\u201d Bongino said in an interview on Fox\u2019s \u201cHannity,\u201d promising again that they were preparing to release more investigative materials.\n <\/p>\n
\n On Monday, Justice and FBI officials conceded there would be no more releases of information from the Epstein files, attempting to squelch the flames they had fanned for months.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CNN \u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Many of President Donald Trump\u2019s close advisers, both inside and outside the White House, have grown…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-50312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114821018985072287","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}