The bane of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s existence right now is the Jeffrey Epstein files.
She misplayed her hand, has defied a court order, the GOP is rebelling against her, and now she has dropped a bombshell announcement.
Bondi claims the DOJ has located another one million files, begging for volunteers to help sort through the documents over the holiday week to get them out as soon as possible.
Bondi has been under attack by both sides of the aisle over the delayed release of the Epstein files, to the point that there is a growing bipartisan movement in Congress to hold her in contempt.
For example, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), no friend to Trump, just expressed her discontent over how the files have been handled.
She stated, “I’m not satisfied. I’m not satisfied.” She then noted how much of the files have been redacted, adding, “I mean, look at the pages and pages that are completely black, completely black.”
Murkowski concluded, “That’s not what we passed,” she said. “What we passed was you have 30 days to release the files. You have 30 days to open it all up. And yes, we expect the confidentiality of the victims to be respected. But what we didn’t expect is to see the extent of the redaction, but also — again, the fact that it is not coming in a complete way. This is not a surprise here, folks.”
Bondi is already on the clock, and that situation got much worse when she revealed that the DOJ had just “discovered” more than one million more files.
The DOJ then announced, "We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible.”
The announcement continued, "The Department will continue to fully comply with federal law and President Trump’s direction to release the files.”
Forgive me here, but how were these files only recently discovered? I continue to be amazed at the sheer level of incompetence on display. I really thought Bondi would be an exceptional attorney general, but she continues to bungle things, these files in particular.
A memo then reportedly went out to staffers, begging for help over the holiday week to get all these files reviewed and released.
A supervising prosecutor wrote, “I am aware that the timing could not be worse.” The memo continued, “For some the holidays are about to begin, but I know that for others the holidays are coming to an end.”
The plea for help continued, “We have an obligation to the public to release these documents and before we can do so, certain redactions must be made to protect the identity of the victims, among other things."
With Trump having extended the Christmas holiday to Christmas Eve and the day after, these are now all overtime days, so anyone working is going to get some extra cash from John Q. Taxpayer. This has turned into a nightmare situation for Bondi, and I continue to wonder just how much rope she has left before Trump demands her resignation.
