From hopeless partisanship to constant bullshitting to her botched handling of the Epstein files, Attorney General Pam Bondi has alienated nearly everyone, writes Elie Honig.
On my first day as a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, I received “the Reservoir Speech.”alums are nodding in recognition; we all got some variation of the talk.
In broad strokes: Think of DOJ as a reservoir and the water in it as public trust. It takes years to build up that water supply, but even a slight crack can drain it quickly. Now that you’re part of the Justice Department, you’ll have the benefit of the doubt, and judges and the general public will believe you because of that hard-earned public trust. Don’t be the one to crack the reservoir and drain it.is threatening to leave the reservoir tapped out. She has confirmed the worst fears of Democrats who opposed her from the start, and now she’s pulled off the more difficult task of alienating conservatives and the pro-Trump MAGA base .that “we won Pennsylvania … we are thrilled to have won Pennsylvania,” despite Trump’s loss by over 80,000 votes. Bondiwith other Trump advisers to use those false claims to challenge the 2020 election results in the courts. When Bondi wasat her February 2025 confirmation hearing about her election lies, she retreated to the bullshit signifier fashioned by other Trump-loyal power-seekers: “President Biden is the president of the United States. He was duly sworn in.” During her short stint as AG, Bondi has continued to prevaricate, casually at times and tactically at others. In April 2025, shethat Trump had saved a piddling 119 million lives.) Apparently, if not for the president, about three-fourths of the American public would be dead right now. More consequentially, Bondi showed herself to be both a hopeless partisan — that part was already widely suspected — and an inveterate truth-stretcher when she refused even to open an investigation into the that specific information about impending military attack plans was somehow “not classified and inadvertently released.”Bondi, you may recall, marched into the AG’s suite promising jaw-dropping revelations about the infamous child molester’s expanded. In February 2025 on Fox News, she teased an impending initial release of Epstein-related materials as “breaking news.” Credulous conservative influencers, self-importantly holding aloft binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase I.” Turned out, those binders contained about 200 pages of documents, most of which had been previously released and none of which established anything new or interesting.Frantically backtracking, Bondi promised more still. She vowed that a second, even juicier document dump was imminent and claimed she had somehow been duped by miscreant FBI agents who withheld thousands of documents. When asked on Fox News about the purportedly incriminating, undisclosed Epstein “client list,” Bondithat, after an exhaustive review of over 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence, there was nothing to the wildest of the conspiracy theories: no incriminating client list, no blackmail, no jailhouse murder, no basis to investigate or charge anybody else. The report offered a sharp rebuke to Epstein conspiracy theorists: “One of our highest priorities is combating child exploitation and bringing justice to victims. Perpetuating unfounded theories about Epstein serves neither of those ends.” And the memo announced a blunt end point: “No further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” Join a team of experts — from former prosecutors to legal scholars — as they break down the complex legal issues shaping our country today. Twice a week, Elie Honig and other CAFE Contributors examine the intersecting worlds of law, politics, and current events.When asked about Bondi’s apparently false statement that she had the client list on her desk, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavittup cringey word salad: “Yes, she was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. That’s what the attorney general was referring to.” Well, that explains that. This week, Bondi tried at a Cabinet meeting to spin her own prior fib about having the “client list” on her desk while Trump, visibly agitated,, “Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy’s been talked about for years. You’re asking — we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy? This creep? That is unbelievable.” In this moment, Trump was absolutely spot on in his exasperation.that Bondi’s response to the Epstein situation “makes Trump and his entire administration look so bad I don’t even have words for it.” Heavyweight firebrandBondi a “dumb lying bimbo” and urged Trump to fire her. Megyn Kelly excoriated the AG for being “either lazy and incompetent or she willingly humiliated some of the president’s most loyal supporters;” Kelly Bondi likely isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. She’s too loyal to Trump to find herself in imminent danger. But she’d be well advised to remember two things about Trump. First, he’s sensitive to criticism from certain media outlets, especially right-wing influencers. And second, Trump will cashier an AG who he does not trust to serve his best political purposes. Recall his humiliatingBondi was never going to win over liberals or Trump haters. But she somehow managed to sling so many false promises that she’s earned the ire of many of Trump’s most loyal supporters. Now she’s left that reservoir of credibility — DoJ’s and her own — bone dry.How the Prosecution Blew Its Case Against DiddyRepublicans will probably lose the House in 2026 even if the Trump megabill’s devastating cuts aren’t immediately apparent.The president’s vague threats make booting out his political enemies sound easy. Here’s what he can actually do.The acronym for “Trump Always Chickens Out” was originally about his tariffs, but it’s morphing into a broader Trump insult.Trump said “I think so” when asked if Bongino is still deputy FBI director. But Bongino’s job remains in limbo amid his feud with Pam Bondi.New records show an officer covertly led a group that came into contact with JFK’s assassin after the agency denied such a thing.He once promised supporters big revelations on the alleged sex trafficker. Now, they’re not accepting his pleas to move on from the story.Joe Biden’s 2020 win was a Pyrrhic victory for Democrats, and the four-year gap just made Trump’s second term more horrific.Missouri’s attorney general is trying to force AI companies to make their chatbots give partisan answers. Will they fight back?While Eric Adams, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa try to elbow one another aside, donors are just lining up behind the idea of stopping Mamdani.The once-ascending senator has lost steam after getting bullied into backing Pete Hegseth and horribly mishandling protests over Medicaid cuts.Along with rescissions hitting foreign aid, the new round of firings shows Trump is still bent on tearing down bipartisan foreign-policy traditions.Gallup found that 62 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the issue, and there are signs of erosion among Republicans, too.The modern version of Lex Luthor is based on Trump, yet he’s been posing as the Man of Steel for decades. Here’s a timeline of his obsession.The Texas attorney general’s divorce could upend his effort to oust John Cornyn from the U.S. Senate — or loyalty to Trump could save him once again.It’s going to be tough for the GOP to hang on to the House. But tilting the map via redistricting in Texas and Ohio could help.New York
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