Bon Voyage Bongino?

When the FBI goes to war with the Attorney General, it’s usually polite and behind the scenes, unless it isn’t. Like when Jim Comey went behind AG Loretta Lynch’s back to hold a press conference explaining his view of the decision to decline prosecution of Hilary Clinton. When reports emerged late last week that the number two at FBI, Deputy Director Dan Bongino, was dissatisfied with AG Pam Bondi’s handling of—of all things, the Jeffrey Epstein report—it seemed like there would be more drama in the works. But after Bongino skipped work Friday, reportedly because he was considering quitting, there has been almost radio silence on the matter. Last week, Bongino “implied” it was either him or Bondi; one of them had to go.

Donald Trump had quite the reaction last week, coming to Bondi’s defense and writing, “We’re all on one Team, MAGA.”

Axios was first to report that all was not well in the DOJ family. “FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took a day off from work Friday after clashing at the White House with Attorney General Pam Bondi over their handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, four sources familiar with the conflict told Axios.” It’s rich that Trump is trying to single handedly undo the rule of law, enacting executive order after executive order that violates the Constitution and our laws, while violating the due process of hundreds of deportees, and the one issue that finally gets people’s attention is…the Jeffrey Epstein files.

According to CNN, “Bongino denied leaking that notion [that he and Patel wanted more of the Epstein files released] to NewsNation, which published the story, a source familiar with the matter told CNN, though he did not sign on to a statement defending the review included in that article.”

These are not serious people.

The deputy director’s job, running day-to-day operations at the FBI, is consuming. It’s hard work. It requires sober dedication and constant diligence. It’s not for everyone. Also, absolutely no one leaks that they’re thinking about resigning from the job. “Do, or do not. There is no try,” as Yoda would say. The idea that a deputy director would publicly issue a “me or the AG must go” threat would be unthinkable in any other administration.

Pam Bondi has lost control of the most fraught relationship any attorney general has, the one with the director of the FBI who, while he technically works for her, has an enormous amount of power he can leverage for his own purposes. She was seen today at the White House, along with her number two, Deputy AG Todd Blanche, and FBI director Kash Patel. Word is they were there for hours.

It appeared that there was an effort to make Bondi the scapegoat as MAGA outrage over the failure to release a supposed list of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients boiled over on social media. It was definitely knives out. But there was a feeling of a high school blow up to it—Laura Loomer salaciously passed on the gossip about Patel and Bongino being unhappy with what Bondi was doing—than of the highest officials in the Trump administration conducting the nation’s business. If you’d tried to write a farce involving this crew, this scenario might be exactly what you would have come up with. The FBI investigates terrorism, violent crime, cartels, white collar crime, civil rights violations and more, but its leadership is spending its time trying to protect its image from MAGA tears over a situation that, no matter how serious sex trafficking is, no longer poses an ongoing threat to victims. The interest is more prurient that protective, certainly not a matter deserving of the full-blown attention of top leadership and DOJ and the FBI.

It’s worth noting that this blow up happened after Bongino found a 10-hour surveillance video taken outside of Epstein’s Manhattan jail cell the day he died. Believing it established Epstein had not been murdered, he saw to its release. It turns out that there is a minute missing at a key point, which triggered this round of uproar over Epstein and claims he was murdered while in custody. According to CNN, Bondi tried to explain it away as malfunctioning equipment that skips the same minute every night, but no one bought in. Whatever the reason, FBI top brass turned on Bondi.

To top it off, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed there was nothing but harmony between the AG and the FBI’s leadership in a post on X Friday, tweeting, “the suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.” Of course, Blanche, too, has also stumbled recently. Documents disproving his claim that DOJ whistleblower Erez Reuveni was lying when he claimed Blanche’s principal deputy, Emil Bove, suggested the administration would ignore court orders in deportation cases. Blanche denounced Reuveni’s sworn statement as “utterly false”. But it turns out Reuveni had documents backing up his claims.

So, this DOJ leadership isn’t batting 1000—or anything close to it—when it comes to their reputation for telling the truth.

Best of all is the comment from the White House, reported by CNN:

“White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields said Trump has ‘assembled a highly qualified and experienced law and order team dedicated to protecting Americans, holding criminals accountable, and delivering justice to victims.’

‘This work is being carried out seamlessly and with unity,’ Fields said. ‘Any attempt to sow division within this team is baseless and distracts from the real progress being made in restoring public safety and pursuing justice for all.’”

Sit back and get ready to watch that unity in action!

The FBI has much more important work to do than squable over this. We’ve just seen a massive failure by DHS and FEMA to support flooding victims in Texas, where over 100 people are still missing. FEMA hasn’t responded to Americans who need emergency help, ignoring over a thousand calls because this administration foolishly cut essential services from its budget. You would think the FBI would learn from this example and take care of its business, rather than let the next failure to protect Americans happen on their watch. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

Thank you for reading and for being part of a community of high-information voters. Paid subscriptions make it possible for me to devote the time and care this work requires—I’m grateful for your support.

We’re in this together,

Joyce