GOP lawmakers think Bondi fueled the firestorm — which Democrats have delighted in stoking — by telling Fox News anchor John Roberts in February that Epstein’s client list was “sitting right now on my desk to review.”
Months later, the Justice Department and FBI released an unsigned memo asserting there was “no incriminating ‘client list’” and that federal investigators “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” That memo provoked widespread skepticism and accusations that the Trump administration wasn’t being fully transparent.
“There’s a https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5617816-senate-republicans-criticize-bondi-justice-department/lot of frustration with the Epstein stuff. People thought the DOJ really mishandled that in general, and unnecessarily elevated that,” one GOP senator, who requested anonymity to discuss frustration with Bondi, told The Hill.
The senator called Bondi’s statement to Fox News in February and the conflicting July memo an “unforced error.”
Bondi has since explained that she wasn’t talking about an actual client list but instead a stack of Epstein-related files and that it was Roberts, the interviewer, who used the words “list of Jeffrey Epstein clients.”