Department of Justice leaders are facing sharp criticism and resignation calls from a faction of their supporters after they ended their inquiry into Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case without releasing new files.
The outrage, emanating largely from the right, can be tied to several past instances when those same leaders and other Republicans with large platforms once promoted the existence of incriminating, nonpublic Epstein case files, including a supposed list of sexual predators who were his clients.
Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino now say they have nothing further to share with the public about Epstein’s case.
In a joint, unsigned memo, the DOJ and FBI said Monday that after an exhaustive inquiry uncovering 300 gigabytes’ worth of material related to Epstein’s case, they found no signs of illegal activity by any new third parties.
‘We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,’ the memo read.
The memo stated that ‘much of the material’ related to the Epstein case was subject to court-ordered seals, prohibiting the DOJ from releasing it. The client list, a point of significant discourse, does not exist, the memo said.
Some of President Donald Trump’s supporters and Patel’s and Bongino’s massive fan bases are now making it clear that they expected more. Below are 10 possible reasons for that.
1. Kash Patel said House Republicans should release ‘Epstein’s list’ of ‘pedophiles.’
Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson asked Patel why the government had not released information about Epstein’s purported clients, according to a clip Johnson shared in December 2023, before Patel became FBI director.
‘Simple, because of who’s on that list,’ Patel replied. ‘You don’t think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress night and day to prevent the disclosure of that list?’
Patel criticized the Republican-led House for failing to obtain ‘Epstein’s list.’
‘What the hell are the House Republicans doing? They have the majority. You can’t get the list?’ Patel asked, later adding, ‘We can’t even get basic documents out. This is why America hates Congress.’
‘Put on your big boy pants, and let us know who the pedophiles are,’ Patel said.
2. Kash Patel told Glenn Beck that the FBI director has ‘direct control’ of Epstein’s address book.
In an interview in December 2023, Patel addressed questions from BlazeTV host Glenn Beck about Epstein’s ‘black book.’ Patel said the FBI had the book.
‘That’s under direct control of the director of the FBI,’ the now-FBI director said.
Patel added, ‘That’s a thing I think President Trump should run on. On day one, roll out the black book.’
Epstein’s address books have long been a point of scrutiny. His house manager tried to sell one, according to a 2009 FBI affidavit. Gawker published one of the address books in 2015 with phone numbers redacted. That version contains hundreds of both well-known and obscure names. A judge allowed one of the address books to be entered under seal into the court record during his associate Ghislain Maxwell’s sex trafficking trial in 2021.
3. Trump told Fox News during his campaign that he plans to release the Epstein files.
When asked on ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ last year if Trump would ‘declassify the Epstein files’ if he were elected president, Trump replied that he would.
‘Yeah, yeah I would. I guess I would,’ Trump said. ‘I think less so because you don’t know, you don’t want to affect people’s lives if it’s phony stuff in there, because there’s a lot of phony stuff with that whole world, but I think I would.’
On Tuesday during a Cabinet meeting, Trump brushed off the topic of Epstein when asked by a reporter about him.
‘Are people still talking about this guy, this creep?’ Trump said. ‘That is unbelievable.’
4. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., insisted there is a ‘list,’ even after the Bondi-led DOJ said otherwise.
‘What about her little black book? The 97-page book, contains the names and contact details of almost 2,000 people including world leaders, celebrities and businessmen,’ Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wrote this week on X. ‘No one believes there is not a client list.’
The Miami Herald’s Julie Brown, who followed and reported on Epstein’s case for years, has said claims about the list are dubious.
‘There is no client list that I am aware of. My theory is it was something conspiracy theorists cooked up to monetize their podcasts online,’ Brown wrote in response to social media users in 2024.
5. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., claimed ‘Epstein’s client list’ was ‘key to helping us crack this trafficking ring wide open.’
Sen. Marsha Blackburn has made the release of the Epstein files one of her top priorities over the past couple of years.
From promoting anticipated disclosures on the Senate floor to posting dozens of times about the matter on social media, Blackburn has vowed that ‘accountability for these predators is coming.’
‘Epstein’s client list and the information I requested to reveal his associates & business dealings are key to helping us crack this trafficking ring wide open,’ Blackburn wrote on social media in February.
Ahead of the DOJ releasing a small tranche of files in February, Blackburn said ‘this will be a ‘phase 1’ release. There will be more to come.’
The Trump administration first released that batch of information, which contained no new revelations, in February to right-wing social media influencers. They appeared in photos at the White House with binders the Trump administration gave them that were labeled ‘classified’ and ‘Epstein files: Phase 1.’
Blackburn also secured a promise from Patel during his confirmation hearing this year that he would publish Epstein files.
6. Bondi suggested an Epstein list was on her desk.
Bondi was asked by host John Roberts during a Fox News interview in February if she planned to release a ‘list of Epstein’s clients.’
‘It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,’ Bondi said. ‘That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.’
Bondi clarified her remarks during the Cabinet meeting with Trump on Tuesday, saying she was referencing Epstein’s entire case file.
‘In February, I did an interview on Fox, and it’s been getting a lot of attention because I said, I was asked a question about the client list, and my response was, ‘It’s sitting on my desk to be reviewed,’ meaning the [Epstein] file along with the JFK and MLK files, as well,’ Bondi said. ‘That’s what I meant by that.’
7. Bondi told Sean Hannity that the DOJ has a ‘truckload’ of Epstein evidence.
After the initial document release flopped, Bondi falsely said the FBI’s New York office was intentionally withholding documents from her.
During an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity in March, Bondi claimed a ‘source’ told her the case files were in New York, where Epstein was indicted in 2019.
‘I gave them a deadline of Friday at 8 a.m. to get us everything, and a source had told me where the documents were being kept, Southern District of New York, shock,’ Bondi said. ‘So we got them all by, hopefully all of them, Friday at 8 a.m., thousands of pages of documents.’
‘Director Patel is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents,’ Bondi said, adding that a ‘truckload of evidence arrived’ at the DOJ after she requested the documents from New York.
The attorney general then went on a tirade about transparency and again questioned why the case files were in New York.
8. Bongino told his podcast listeners the ‘Epstein client list is a huge deal.’ There is ‘a reason they’re hiding it,’ he said.
Bongino predicted on his podcast in September 2024 that the ‘Epstein client list,’ which he now says does not exist, ‘is going to rock the Democrat Party.’
‘Folks, the Epstein client list is a huge deal,’ Bongino said.
‘The reason the Epstein client list being revealed is so important is because I want you to understand that there is a class of bekightened folks … who are not subjected to the same rules you are,’ Bongino said.
The former podcast star warned, ‘Folks, you’re going to see a lot of names on that. … It’s going to rock the political world. There’s a reason they’re hiding it.’
Bongino pushed the theory that Epstein’s death in 2019 in his jail cell was not a suicide, despite the DOJ inspector general and a medical examiner saying it was.
Epstein ‘is deceased under, at a minimum, suspicious circumstances,’ Bongino said.
In the FBI and DOJ’s new memo, they concluded that Epstein’s death was caused by suicide.
9. Bondi said she was briefed on the Epstein files and could not talk about them.
Bondi told Benny Johnson in February that she was briefed about the matter and unable to comment on it.
Johnson asked, ‘Where are we at with the Jeffrey Epstein list? The documents? And Kash has made a lot of public statements about this.’
‘I was briefed on that yesterday,’ Bondi said. ‘I can’t talk about that publicly. But, President Trump has given a very strong directive, and that’s going to be followed.’
10. Patel said in November that ‘restoring trust’ in federal agencies could include giving the public the ‘Epstein list.’
Patel told told Johnson last November that what is ‘most important’ is ‘restoring trust in our agencies and departments.’
‘The way to do that is to literally give the American people the truth,’ Patel said. ‘And that’s what they feared about Donald Trump. He’s going to come in there and maybe give them the Epstein list and maybe give them the P. Diddy list … and they are terrified.’
Epstein was indicted in 2019 for allegedly recruiting dozens of women and minors as young as 14 and engaging in sexual relations with them at his lavish homes in Florida, New York and elsewhere. He allegedly sexually abused some of them.
He died after being found unresponsive in his prison cell in New York City in 2019. Maxwell, his associate, was convicted of conspiring to sexually abuse minors and sentenced to 20 years in prison. She has an appeal in her case pending.