Attorney General Pam Bondi cannot wriggle out of her responsibility to publish the Jeffrey Epstein investigative files, all of them. And to do so by Dec. 19, 28 days from today.
The ink had barely dried on Donald Trump’s signature on the Epstein Files Transparency Act on Wednesday to force the Department of Justice to release within 30 days the records — which it could have released at any time but has chosen not to — before Bondi announced suddenly that DOJ was opening a new investigation into Epstein’s (Democratic) associates, which conveniently slot into one of the few exceptions in the law, for materials relevant to active investigations.
Asked about this investigation’s basis this week, the AG said, and we’re quoting here, “Information that has come for, um, information. There’s new information, additional information.”
We’d love to hear what this information is. Better yet, we would love Bondi to be asked about it under oath. We’re very curious about what fable she would spin, because of course we all know that she would not tell the truth: that this is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to keep some of the most damaging information from being publicly released, despite that being the will of an almost unanimous Congress, something that is as rare as a unicorn these days. The bill passed the House on a vote of 427-1 and the Senate by unanimous consent.
We shudder to imagine what could be in those files that is so much worse than the already horrific material that’s been released, and so frightening to Trump specifically that he is willing to risk a MAGA civil war over it, though we all probably have some idea.
Perhaps Bondi thinks Trump and his entourage can continue their streak of defying the rules of political and legal gravity, but things have changed. They can no longer default to crowing about how this is all some liberal or Democrat agenda item they’re fighting against. Their own base is demanding the release, partly a consequence of having a base made largely of ravenous conspiracy theorists.
Trump and his MAGA allies in the media loved feeding their voters conspiratorial slop when it was distracting them from broken political promises or serving to attack political rivals, but it turns out that there are some real-life conspiracies out there that Trump and his circle of elites actually do not want to have brought to light.
You can’t, however, spend years insinuating that you’re the only person who can stop shadowy groups of wealthy and well-connected pedophiles and then expect your followers to go along as their supposed savior goes to extreme lengths to paper over the available evidence concerning the most famous and well-documented elite pedophile cabal in the world.
On the prospect that prominent Democrats might be in the mix, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, had the exact right response: “so what?” It is not and should not be a partisan issue to bring to the fore all the available evidence on the horrific crimes of Epstein and his collaborators, who must all be held accountable.
Enough is enough. Trump has tried every way he can to prevent, slow-roll and distract from the Epstein files, and he has lost. Every additional maneuver will only continue to heighten interest in what’s in the documents, plus now serve as additional violations of the law. Bondi must release the documents in full with redactions only for things like child abuse material, and she must do it imminently, as the law commands.
