WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has grown weary of defending Attorney General Pam Bondi’s handling of the Justice Department’s Jeffery Epstein files and wants her to take responsibility for cleaning up the mess, according to four people familiar with White House deliberations.
“One thing that’s been clear is his feelings about it,” one White House official told NBC News. “This now resides within the DOJ.”
Another senior White House official said they believed that the situation had “stabilized” when asked about the White House’s view of Bondi’s performance.
The administration’s refusal to disclose the full contents of the government’s investigation into Epstein, who killed himself in jail while awaiting trial on charges of sex-trafficking minors in 2019, has caused a deep rift between Trump and significant elements of his MAGA base.
Bondi is not in danger of losing her job because she is loyal and well-liked by the president and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, these sources, as well as a person who is close to the White House said, but Trump is no longer interested in taking heat for her.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
On Tuesday, Trump said it is up to Bondi whether to release “credible” information from Epstein-related materials, and three days later, he ordered his attorney general to seek a court’s permission to release “pertinent” grand jury testimony from the Epstein probe. Bondi filed the required motion in court on Friday.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday that this week’s firing of Maurene Comey, a federal prosecutor who worked on the Epstein case, was handled by the Justice Department rather than Trump.
It all appears to add up to Trump trying to redirect the Epstein storm toward Bondi.
“I do think that he likes and respects Pam, but she has without question caused some headaches for them,” one person familiar with White House discussions said. “At the end of the day, at this point she is almost assuredly is just doing what she is told, so I believe she is very safe, but has had missteps.”
In a statement to NBC News, Leavitt did not mention the Epstein affair in praising Bondi’s record.
“Attorney General Pam Bondi is working tirelessly to end the weaponization that has rotted our justice system, remove violent criminals from our streets, and help President Trump in making America safe again,” Leavitt said. “The president is appreciative of her efforts.”
Many of Trump’s most ardent supporters, spurred on by Bondi and other prominent figures in Trump’s orbit, have long believed that the federal government hid damaging information about connections between Epstein and some of the nation’s wealthiest and most powerful people.
In February, Bondi told Fox News that an Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now” waiting to be reviewed and released. Her department hyped up “Epstein binders” and circulated them to MAGA influencers. But the binders contained information that was already in the public sphere rather than highly sensitive and damning material.
And in a memo quietly circulated at the end of the July Fourth weekend, Bondi’s department concluded that the government has no evidence of the main components of Epstein-related conspiracy theories: a client list, a scheme to blackmail prominent figures or foul play in his death. Confirming what mainstream media outlets had previously reported, the unsigned Justice Department memo touched off a full-on political melee within the president’s political base.
The release of that memo — and the lack of Justice Department follow-up in the aftermath — created an information vacuum, which was then left largely to the president to fill, one White House official explained.
Trump friend Laura Loomer, a right-wing activist, has spent much of the last two weeks torching Bondi on social media, referring to her as “Blondi.”
“I’ve been exposing Pam Blondi since BinderGate,” Loomer wrote on X last week. “Some White House staff literally called me begging me to stop attacking her back in February and March. But, I’m not getting any calls to stop this week. Speaks volumes, doesn’t it?”
With Trump voters demanding more information from the president and the attorney general, several of Trump’s most loyal allies — including Tucker Carlson and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk — distanced themselves from him on the issue. He responded by flaying them on Truth Social, calling his critics within the party “weaklings” and claiming that he no longer wants “their support.”
Trump and White House officials have struggled to move past the Epstein imbroglio since the July Fourth weekend, perhaps having initially underestimated its staying power within the MAGA movement.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is close to Trump, said the president does not have to try to quell the internal dissent all at once.
“Trump will methodically find ways to satisfy his base that he’s serious and they’ll get this thing done,” Gingrich said. “This is not a crisis; this is a problem.”