CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said on Wednesday that Attorney General Pam Bondi “egregiously” mishandled the files surrounding sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Bondi has faced immense pressure since the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation concluded that Epstein committed suicide and there was no evidence of a “client list,” which stood in contradiction to her previous promises to reveal new bombshell information related to the Epstein case. Honig said on “The Situation Room” that Bondi violated “longstanding” policy observed by the DOJ and has made “grandiose promises” that she has failed to fulfill.
“[Bondi] has mishandled this egregiously in a couple respects. First of all, she has completely ignored longstanding DOJ policy which both sides, both political parties, have observed, that you don’t turn over to the public closed, investigative files. She doesn’t seem to know about or care about that policy and hence, she has walked herself into this corner. And then she’s made matters worse by overrepresenting what is in those files. She has made grandiose promises and then suddenly, as we just heard in that clip, has now had this reversal and now her position is ‘nothing to see here, nothing more coming out, everyone needs to be quiet and we’re moving on.’”
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During a Tuesday press conference, Bondi refused to answer questions on Epstein and adamantly pushed for reporters to ask questions about fentanyl.
“Nothing about Epstein. I’m not going to talk about Epstein,” Bondi said.
Bondi said during a Fox News interview in February that a so-called client list was on her desk awaiting review, though she and the DOJ later stated that she referred to a wide range of documents relating to several investigations. The attorney general also said that she cannot release additional videos related to Epstein because they contain child pornography.
Honig further said that Bondi has damaged her relationship with many on the political right for failing to “deliver.”
“She promised that she had important documents on her desk, and again, she did a very sudden 180 and said nothing is coming out. So that has now alienated many on the right as well,” Honig continued.
The attorney general also stated that security footage from the night Epstein died was missing a minute because the Metropolitan Correctional Center resets its cameras every night. The digital clock in the footage skipped from 11:58:58 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., which raised questions about what happened to the missing footage.
Democrat California Rep. Ro Khanna led an effort for Congress to force Bondi to release all of the records related to Epstein, though House Republicans blocked the chamber from even voting on the matter in a Tuesday procedural vote. Speaker Mike Johnson told Benny Johnson on Tuesday that he is supportive of releasing the files, but that he would defer to President Donald Trump’s judgement on what materials should be made public.
Trump, who has downplayed the investigation and its conclusion, stated on Tuesday that Bondi should release “whatever she thinks is credible” concerning Epstein. The president issued a lengthy statement defending Bondi on July 12, where he said she has done a “fantastic job” and that the public needs to move on from Epstein.
Trump also compared the so-called “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax” to Russiagate, a now-debunked investigation into whether Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russia to influence the election results.
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