Transcript of Epstein Blunders and Tossed Indictments: The Downfall of Pam Bondi

Hey, it's Michael. Before today's episode, I wanna tell you about a new show from our colleagues over at Serial Productions. It's a new 5-part series featuring New York Times columnist M. Gessen, and it's a remarkable one. In the show, M. tells a story about a cousin named Alan who is currently in prison for murder for hire. It's a story about family, about what we do when members of our family do bad things. It's about betrayal and the craving to know the truth. It's thoughtful, it's complicated, and it's very funny. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, and we hope you check it out. The series is called The Idiot. Okay, here's today's show. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today, how Pam Bondi went from being the loyal attorney general of President Trump's dreams to a blundering figure whom he abruptly fired on Thursday afternoon. I turn to the journalist who broke the story that Bondi was about to be ousted, White House reporter Tyler Pager. It's Friday, April 3rd. Well, Tyler, here we go again.

Another one bites the dust.

Yes, a second cabinet member fired by President Trump in 4 weeks. And arguably, this firing ends the career of a cabinet member who is even more important to the president than then the last one, Kristi Noem, head of Homeland Security, because this is the attorney general. And this attorney general, until the very end, strikes me as a very paradoxical figure because she is simultaneously as absolutely loyal a foot soldier as you could fathom, and yet somebody who keeps letting the president down.

You're absolutely right, Michael. Pam Bondi was executing on a wide-ranging agenda that the president outlined when he ran for president for a third time. He wanted to lead a retribution campaign against his political opponents, and much of that depended on having an attorney general willing to shatter decades-long norms about how a Justice Department operates, which traditionally is independent from the White House. In no way, shape, or form did Pam Bondi even try to be independent. Independent. She bragged about how much she worked at the directive of Donald Trump, but even that wasn't enough for him. And on top of that, she created a political crisis of her own making in her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

Right. And we will get to the Epstein files for sure. I want to, though, keep digging into the specifics of Bondi's loyal service to Trump and what she gave the president within the DOJ, because it was a lot.

Yeah, I mean, Michael, A good place to start is in March of 2025 at the Justice Department headquarters.

Welcome to the Department of Justice.

She invited the president to come speak. And before he speaks, Pambani gives a speech.

And we all work for the greatest president in the history of our country.

And what she says is that she is working for the greatest president in the history of our country.

And we are so proud to work at the directive of Donald Trump.

That she works, quote, at the directive of Donald Trump. Now, that is unprecedented. In previous administrations, attorneys general would try to not even appear at certain White House events because they didn't want to seem too close or cozy with the president and his allies. Pambandi is taking it in the exact opposite direction. Touting how much she takes direction from Donald Trump.

He will never stop fighting for us, and we will never stop fighting for him and for our country.

And then over the course of her tenure, she did many of the things that he wanted her to do. She oversees a wide-scale purging of Justice Department prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on cases investigating Donald Trump, when he was out of office.

And we should just say those FBI agents, those DOJ lawyers, they didn't necessarily seek to be on those cases. They were assigned to investigate Trump by their bosses. And suddenly Pam Bondi is saying doing your job and upsetting the president means that you are now out of a job.

Right. She's immediately making clear that there is a loyalty test for anyone who works in the sprawling Department of Justice and FBI. And that, I think, is the blueprint for which she carried out her job.

Hmm.

And then we saw the Department of Justice, under Pam Bondi's leadership, launch investigations into some of Trump's longstanding political opponents: Adam Schiff, the senator from California; Jerome Powell, the Fed Reserve chairman who he wants to lower interest rates. We saw them try to secure indictments of James Comey, the former FBI director. Letitia James, the New York attorney general, and they even tried to indict 6 members of Congress for the alleged crime of telling military officials they should not follow illegal orders. And many of these cases and investigations have collapsed or not moved forward for various reasons, mostly because there was not enough evidence to indict or to move forward. Right.

The cases were so thin or legally dubious that they essentially collapse.

Right. So, Michael, she ultimately gets herself in a trap in which she makes it harder for her to carry out the president's directives of politically motivated prosecutions because she's making it so clear publicly that she's doing so. That many judges and juries are just flat out rejecting any efforts to carry those cases or investigations forward.

Right. And by making the mission of the Department of Justice under her so narrow, I will go after your enemies, Mr. President, Bondi doesn't really leave herself much room for success because she knows at the end of the day that these aren't especially strong cases.

And even as she is devoting so many resources to investigating Donald Trump's political opponents, it's still not enough for him. He is complaining to aides and allies that she's moving too slowly. And we even saw some of this criticism spill out into the public when Donald Trump posted on Truth Social a message addressed to his attorney general, basically castigating her for not getting enough results and not prosecuting individuals that he thought were guilty of crimes. Hmm. And so it's just this self-fulfilling cycle of her trying to prosecute more people, launch more investigations, fulfill his wide-ranging retribution promises, and finding roadblocks after roadblocks because of the way our justice system in the country works. Right.

So she's in some trouble here, and her loyalty is not solving the problem.

And Michael, as if that wasn't enough, there's a huge other scandal swirling with her right at the center of it. And that, of course, is the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Very early on, she commits this enormous self-inflicted wound. The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients.

Will that really happen?

By going on Fox News and announcing it's sitting on my desk right now to review. That's It's been a directive by President Trump. I'm reviewing that.

Jeffrey Epstein's client list is sitting on her desk ready for her review. And then the next day—

So this morning I was at the White House meeting with President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. And they presented us with— let me show you.

She joins a meeting of conservative influencers at the White House.

And they presented us with this binder.

And gives them a binder.

It says on the front, the Epstein Files Phase 1, by order of Attorney General Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.

Labeled Epstein Files, that they walk out of the White House waving for the cameras. It's a lot, and a lot of this has already been seen before. But very quickly, they become disenchanted with this release.

Don't sit there and tell me there's nothing when you told me there was something. That's the issue for the AG.

Feeling that they haven't actually learned anything new from it.

And as with the indictments that President Trump wants, here comes Bondi making a big show, making big promises and not delivering.

And this causes more agita within the conservative base and on Capitol Hill and ultimately leads to Republicans and Democrats joining together through legislation to force the Department of Justice to release all of the Epstein files. This is a problem for President Trump politically.

Indeed.

And it's also, Michael, one of the first times Republicans on Capitol Hill really stand up to the president and disobey his demands to not support this legislation.

And what's so striking about what Bondi did with those self-inflicted wounds is that she didn't have to do it. The president wasn't asking her to do it. It wasn't like the indictments. This was something she kind of did on her own initiative, and it really, really backfired spectacularly.

Right. And Michael, this entire episode around Epstein has really put Pam Bondi in the hot seat. So much so that Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff and a longtime ally of Pam Bondi from, their time in Florida, told Vanity Fair in an interview that Bondi completely whiffed in her handling of the Epstein files. And the pressure never relented from Capitol Hill and culminated in a hearing a few weeks ago where lawmakers from both parties grilled her on her handling of the investigation. And overall, Michael, it did not go very well for Pam Bondi.

We'll be right back. And we welcome everyone to today's hearing on oversight of the Department of Justice. So, Tyler, remind us about this congressional hearing in which things go from not so good already for Pam Bondi to worse.

Thank you, Chairman Jordan, Ranking Member Raskin, and distinguished members of this committee.

In this hearing, it's on full display how much animosity there is toward her in her handling of this investigation.

How many of Epstein's co-conspirators have you indicted? How many perpetrators are you even investigating?

She's getting blasted by Democrats.

I find it—

How many have you indicted?

Excuse me, I'm going to answer the question.

Answer my question.

No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question.

Your theatrics are ridiculous.

Chairman Jordan, I'm not going to get in the gutter with these people. I'm going to answer the question.

How many have you indicted? You can let her filibuster all day long, but not on our watch.

Not on our time.

No way. And I told you about that.

Attorney General before you started.

You don't tell me.

No, I did tell you because we saw what you did in the Senate.

Lawyer. Not even a lawyer.

Committee will be in order.

As Trump has trained his officials, she gives no inch.

You know why? Because Donald Trump, the Dow, the Dow right now is over. The Dow is over $50,000. I don't know why you're laughing. You're a great stock trader, as I hear, Raskin.

She talks about the DAO, which quickly becomes an internet meme because it's unrelated to her job as Attorney General.

And definitely unrelated to the Epstein investigation.

Totally. She offered few detailed answers. She had no admission of fault.

You apologized to the survivors in your opening statement for what they went through at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein. Will you turn to them now? And apologize for what your Department of Justice has put them through with the absolutely unacceptable release of the Epstein files and their information. Congresswoman Merrick Garland sat in this chair twice. Attorney General Bondi. No, can I finish my answer? No, I'm—

And even refuses a request to turn around and apologize to survivors of Jeffrey Epstein who are in the hearing room. Right. And then as the hearing goes on—

The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans, too, are really pressing her.

To my right is an email that was sent by the victims' lawyers to the DOJ. It was a list of names not to release. What did the DOJ do with this email? They released this email in the document production. Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did.

And I think what it illustrates is just how much the Epstein issue and the outrage around it is a bipartisan one.

And with that, we're going to stand in recess. We will go as quickly as we can and vote. We have two quick votes on the floor. We will be back without objection. We stand in recess.

Right.

I actually ended up watching that hearing, and I was struck by how many pretty demonstrably partisan Republicans just did not seem eager to lend her a helping hand.

Yeah. And then last month, 5 Republicans on that very committee blindsided their own leadership and Pambondi, joining Democrats to vote to subpoena her to testify under oath behind closed doors about the Epstein case. Right.

And just to state the obvious, if you're President Trump and you know your own party controls Congress, having that Congress subpoena your attorney general and have them forced to testify under oath about a scandal swirling around your presidency, Jeffrey Epstein, his emails in which Trump himself is named a lot, that is not ideal.

Definitely not. And all of this just continues to reinforce doubts in the president's mind about whether Pam Bondi is the right person to continue to serve in this job. And on Monday, I got a tip that the president was on the verge of firing her. So I spent the last several days reporting that out, eventually getting enough sources to feel confident that the president was discussing making that move. And the biggest tell that this was imminent was on Wednesday when I reached out to the White House for formal comment. Our story was going to publish to say the president had discussed firing Pam Bondi, and the comment they gave me was directly from President Trump, not Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, or someone else in the communications shop. It was from the president directly. And this is what it said, quote, Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job.

Hmm. Translate that in Trumpology.

Trump is somebody who uses a lot of adjectives. Saying his attorney general is doing a good job is the biggest tell that he is not satisfied with her job performance.

I mean, this really makes me wonder how you guys do your job, because even the word good doesn't really mean good in this administration.

Trump is an expressive politician, and it's rare to see a statement without all caps, exclamation points, You can tell how Trump feels about something based on the language he's using, and this was an obvious one for us. Right.

In this case, "good" basically meant "your days are numbered." I'm curious if your reporting, Tyler, suggests that there was any kind of a final straw here or just the logical culmination of all of the things that you have been laying out here. Bondi's inability to put the president's enemies in jail, her blunders around Epstein, and ultimately her failure to be the kind of communicator, perhaps, that he needs in the role of attorney general.

Michael, my understanding based on the reporting we have at this point is that there was not one final thing, but rather, as you just laid out, the culmination of many things. And Over the last several weeks and months, many of Trump's allies and aides were whispering in his ear, encouraging him, prodding him to pull the plug, arguing there were people better positioned to accomplish his agenda at the Department of Justice.

Well, let's talk about who those people might be and who we think is likely to be the next attorney general for Trump.

So the search is ongoing. But for the time being, the president has announced that Todd Blanch, the deputy attorney general, will serve as acting attorney general. And in elevating Blanch, he's choosing someone who he's deeply familiar with. Blanch, before he joined the administration, was the president's personal lawyer and represented him in multiple criminal trials, including sitting with him at the New York trial over the hush money payment to a porn star. And so he deeply understands the president's desire for revenge, and he's been a key part of the effort to run this retribution campaign from the Justice Department since day one.

Mm-hmm. So he is, in theory, a logical candidate for the job, but he hasn't been nominated, and we don't know exactly who will be.

Right. We reported before Pam Bondi was fired that Trump had been interested in elevating Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the EPA, for the job. But it's telling that Trump has not announced a permanent replacement. When he fired Kristi Noem, he was teed up with Markwayne Mullin, the senator.

Mm-hmm.

This time, he's clearly still thinking about who he wants as her replacement.

Well, whoever ends up getting nominated, I wonder what you think the lesson of Pam Bondi, the very painful lesson of Pam Bondi, will be for the next attorney general?

I mean, they are going to face the same challenge, which is Trump has an enormous appetite for retribution, and many of the people he wants to see indicted or the cases he wants to see brought, the evidence just isn't there, and judges and juries are not going along. So even as the president puts in someone new, they're going to face the enormous task of satisfying him in ways that are sometimes beyond their control. Right.

In that sense, the attorney general of Trump term 2 is in a lot of ways set up to fail.

That's how it seems.

Well, Tyler, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me, Michael. We'll be right back.

Here's what else you need to know today. Growing frustration from American allies over President Trump's approach to Iran boiled over on Thursday when French President Emmanuel Macron lashed out at Trump. Speaking to reporters, Macron mocked Trump for seemingly contradicting himself on his goals for the war on a daily basis and suggested that one solution was for Trump to simply talk less about the war. Meanwhile, in the latest headache for President Trump, Iran signaled that it intends to keep overseeing shipping traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz even after the war ends. The United States insists that Iran has no legal right to do so. Finally, as the war rages on, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired the Army's highest-ranking official, 4-star General Randy George, over a variety of disagreements. One of them was Hegseth's unusual decision to block the promotion of 4 Army officials, a move that General George strongly opposed. Today's episode was produced by Nina Feldman and Caitlin O'Keefe. It was edited by Rachel Quester and Maria Berg. Contains music by Elisheba Itto, Dan Powell, and I'm Marianne Lozano. Our theme music is by Wonderly. This episode was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.

The Daily's engineering team is Alyssa Moxley, Chris Wood, Maddie Maciello, Nick Pittman, Kyle Grandillo, and Efim Shapiro. Our radio team is Jody Becker, Roni Mistoe, Diane Wong, and Katherine Anderson. Alexandra Lee Young is our deputy executive producer. Michael Benoit is our deputy editor. Paige Cowett is the editor of The Daily. Ben Calhoun is our executive producer. Special thanks to Paula Schuman, Larissa Anderson, Sam Dolnick, and to the founding editor of The Daily, Lisa Tobin. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Baborow. See you on Sunday.