Pam Bondi's Swan Song: Ex-Attorney General Scheduled For Oversight Testimony
In 2013, then-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi personally solicited a $25,000 political donation from the Donald J. Trump Foundation for her re-election PAC – and soon received it. Days later, Bondi’s office abandoned plans to join a New York lawsuit investigating fraud allegations against Trump University.
It is against the law for charitable foundations to make political contributions. But in the universe of Trump corruption, $25,000 was laughable chump change. It just proved to him how cheaply Pam Bondi could be had.
Fast forward a few years. Bondi, no longer in elected office, got serious about money as a $115,000-a-month lobbyist with the DC-based influence giant Ballard Partners. Her client list included deep-pocketed private prison corporations and the government of Qatar (for whom she was specifically registered under the Foreign Agent Registration Act for “dealing with matters pertaining to combating human trafficking”). When Trump nominated her to be his attorney general in early 2025, she didn’t bother mentioning those clients in her statement of potential conflicts of interest.
So far so good: lies and omissions are standard operating practice in Trumpworld.
His initial pick for attorney general was Matt Gaetz, who might have been a more fitting choice to oversee the Epstein cover-up, having himself been investigated for child sex trafficking and found to have violated Florida’s statutory rape laws according to the House Ethics Committee. Gaetz had skated on all of it, but was ultimately too tainted even for the slavish Senate Republican majority that would have to approve the nomination.
Still, Bondi was something of an unusual choice for a Trump casting. His preferred front-of-house women tend to be more colorful and histrionic – Pirro, Loomer, Omarosa, Noem. Bondi, though from Florida herself, for some reason never went full Mar-a-Lago face, though it’s not clear self-mutilation would have saved her.
Managing the fake release of a fake politically-motivated conspiracy while simultaneously curating the cover-up of real files tied to a real conspiracy was always going to be a tall order. One day she was riding in the presidential limo with Trump to the Statue of the Union address. The next, she was out in the cold.
To add insult to injury, this week, Pam, the defenestrated private citizen recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer, will have to endure a day of questioning about her role in the Epstein cover-up. While her former DOJ deputy – Trump’s personal attorney Todd “Whiteout” Blanche – wins the Old Man’s heart by erasing January 6 criminals from the DOJ website and rewarding violent coup plotters like Stewart Rhodes with taxpayer money, Pam will, at least for a day and maybe longer, become the public face of the Justice Department’s Epstein files cover-up.
In advance of her star turn on the Hill, here is a Freakshow timeline of Bondi’s ignominious reign as the nation’s top law enforcement official, and how she became Trump’s Brer Rabbit in the tar pit.
January 2025
Shortly after Trump’s inauguration, the Justice Department orders the Southern District of New York, which has an active investigation still underway, to send all Epstein-related evidence to Washington. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD.) would later state that “neither the survivors nor the SDNY prosecutors knew that the purpose of this transfer was to terminate the case.”
Despite the fact that Trump won the 2024 election in part by juicing the Epstein conspiracy and promising to reveal the sordid details, the Senate Judiciary Committee advances Bondi’s nomination without asking anything about the files.
February 4, 2025
The Senate confirms Bondi, by a vote of 54 to 46, with all Republicans and one Democrat – John Fetterman of Pennsylvania – voting in favor.
February 11, 2025
Republican Reps. Jim Comer (R-KY) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), as chairs of House Oversight and the Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets respectively, send a letter to Bondi requesting an ASAP briefing on documents related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
February 21, 2025
Bondi goes on Fox and famously announces that the Epstein “client list” is “sitting on my desk right now to review” as part of a directive from President Trump himself.
February 27, 2025
Bondi incites an influencer revolt by inviting a pack of MAGA fake journalists, including Laura Loomer, to the White House and passing out binders labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” They pose for a photo op, thinking they are holding “declassified” material, only to realize that none of it was ever classified and much of it was already public (Epstein flight logs had been available since 2021).
Worse, the redactions are so badly mishandled that dozens of victims’ names – but not the names of their abusers – enter the public record.
With the stunt having failed, Bondi hops on with Fox News’ Mark Levin and shifts the blame to the New York federal prosecutor’s office, claiming they are “sitting on thousands of pages of documents regarding Epstein.” She promises that America will soon see “the full Epstein files” and then writes a letter to Kash Patel demanding delivery of the “full and complete Epstein files” to her office by 8 AM the next morning, while also demanding an “immediate investigation” into why her orders to the FBI were not followed.
February 28, 2025
James Dennehy, head of the FBI’s New York field office, is fired.
March 2025
Bondi tells Sean Hannity that the DOJ has received “a truckload of evidence” and department staff begin processing 100,000 pages of the Epstein files in Winchester, Virginia. The job takes too long, so two weeks later, Bondi reportedly pressures the FBI to increase staffing and intensify efforts. A whistleblower later reports that she and Patel put crime-fighters on 24-hour document redaction shifts, with instructions to look out for Trump’s name. Sen. Dick Durbin’s letter about this episode contains many questions Bondi has not yet been asked publicly.
May 2025
Bondi reportedly tells Trump during a briefing that his name appears in the Epstein files.
June 5, 2025
Elon Musk claims that the Epstein files have not been released because Trump is in them. “Time to drop the really big bomb: [Trump] is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.” House Democrats immediately fire off a letter asking Bondi and Patel whether Musk’s claim is true.
July 4, 2025
A weekend of mysterious, panicked scrambling unfolds between Main Justice in Washington and the FBI’s New York office to get additional copies of Epstein file photos to Todd Blanche’s office.
July 7, 2025
The DOJ and FBI release an unsigned joint memo stating their “exhaustive review” found no co-conspirators, “did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” and that no further disclosure of documents was warranted. At the end of the letter, officials link to video footage of the MCC Epstein cell area. Bondi never releases any materials related to the “exhaustive review.”
July 15, 2025
Reps. Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna introduce the Epstein Files Transparency Act.
July 16, 2025
Trump posts that the Epstein files are a “Democrat hoax” on Truth Social, then repeats that claim in person from the Oval Office. That same day, Maureen Comey, lead prosecutor in the New York Epstein investigation, is fired.
July 17, 2025
The Wall Street Journal publishes the first of its “birthday book” stories, revealing that Trump gave his old friend Jeff a lewd drawing as a gift. Trump denies that it’s real and eventually files a $10 billion lawsuit that is later tossed by a judge. As another distraction, Trump instructs DOJ to seek release of Epstein grand jury materials. A day later, Bondi and Blanche ask the federal court to release the transcripts.
July 22, 2025
Pam Bondi posts a statement from Todd Blanche announcing that she directed him to communicate with Ghislaine Maxwell’s attorneys.. “If Ghislane [sic] Maxwell has information about anyone who has committed crimes against victims, the FBI and the DOJ will hear what she has to say.”
Two days later, Blanche meets with Maxwell in Tallahassee. Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson, trying to head off a vote on the Epstein Transparency Act, shuts down House business for the rest of the summer.
August 1, 2025
The Bureau of Prisons, a DOJ agency, transfers Maxwell to a low-security prison despite BOP guidelines for convicted sex offenders.
October 7, 2025
Pam Bondi appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee. She seems flummoxed by questions about photos of Trump in Epstein’s safe, as described by Michael Wolff, and deflects questions about DOJ failures to investigate Epstein’s finances by blaming Democratic administrations.
November 14, 2025
At Trump’s behest, Bondi asks New York U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton (a lawyer previously brought into Epstein associate Leon Black’s hedge fund for reputation rehab) to “take the lead” on investigating Epstein’s involvement specifically with Democrats, including Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, and other institutions.
December 21, 2025
Bondi tweets that the Justice Department will bring charges against “anyone involved in the trafficking and exploitation of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.” She claims the DOJ has already met with “many victims” and urges others to reach out to her, Blanche, or the FBI “and we will investigate immediately.”
(NOTE: Victims have repeatedly said that Bondi never talked to any of them and the DOJ has so far not prosecuted anyone other than Ghislaine Maxwell.)
February 11, 2026
Bondi testifies before the House Oversight Committee – prickly, cornered and occasionally unhinged – while refusing to acknowledge a group of Epstein victims in the audience. The spectacle likely ended her run in the Trump cabinet reality show.
As The Daily Beast’s Joanna Coles put it:
These hearings, like so much political theater now, are staged for an audience of one: the great and powerful Donald Trump. So while Bondi thought she was playing the role of loyal defender, her sneering responses and burn book takedowns turned her into something else: the Angry Woman. And that is not something her boss would order from Central Casting.
February 17, 2026
American Freakshow reports the existence of three missing FBI interviews related to a sexual assault allegation against Trump by a woman whose redacted name is marked with the unusual label “protect source.” The story gets picked up by NPR, and after two weeks of denials, the DOJ finally acknowledges the three interviews. But questions remain about what other materials might be similarly withheld.
April 2, 2026
Trump fires Bondi over her handling of the Epstein files. There’s a difference between suave, brazen disregard for the law in quiet practice and full-frontal rudeness to the legislative branch. It’s a difference her replacement, Acting AG Blanche, having auditioned as Trump’s Roy Cohn for the last several years and grown increasingly willing to put his client’s kingly immunity into practice, understands.
He immediately announces that there will be no more Epstein file releases.
.Nina Burleigh is a journalist, author, documentary producer, and adjunct professor at New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute. She has written eight books including her recently published novel, Zero Visibility Possible.
Katie Chenoweth is associate professor of French at Princeton University and an investigative researcher
Reprinted with permission from American Freakshow
