Back in February, the Attorney General of the United States Pam Bondi gleefully told Fox News that she had Jeffrey Epstein’s client list “on my desk.” The head of the Department of Justice generally doesn’t go on cable news to brag about an investigation into a dead guy, but Epstein’s case had taken a place in the right-wing conspiro-sphere and Bondi was ready to milk a few minutes of fame to talk about the grand prize at the end of the QAnon advent calendar!
The “client list” was the fabled document that turned Epstein from a despicable sex criminal into the lynchpin holding the deep state together. The list would, according to the most addled minds on the internet, finally prove that liberals run a global pedophile cult out of a pizza place. No one had ever seen this client list, but the top law enforcement official in the nation told the public that it not only existed, but that she already had it dropped onto her desk.
And she certainly wouldn’t have said anything that imprudent if she didn’t actually have anything to report. Right?
Having earlier released a heavily redacted set of Epstein files — along with JFK assassination materials that more or less confirmed the Warren Commission was right all along — the Justice Department just followed up with a memo explaining that the client list doesn’t exist, there’s nothing in the Epstein files that they feel like divulging, and he definitely killed himself. Kash Patel and Dan Bongino, now running the FBI, previously mused that Epstein was murdered to prevent him from revealing the extent of the conspiracy. Now they’re officially backing the Justice Department’s wet blanket of a memo:
This systematic review revealed no incriminating “client list.” There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.
As hard as it may be, put aside everything about the horrific crimes involved in this case. One of two things happened here.
Either the Attorney General is currently engaged in covering up a damning client list that would expound upon allegations of the the pedophile sex trafficker’s ties to at least some key Trump donors. Or there never was a client list and Bondi was just bald-faced lying for attention when she explicitly said that it was on her desk.
Neither is good!
The former would be a criminal conspiracy run from the highest halls of government. The latter is that the Attorney General exhibits a level of weaponized stupidity that should disqualify her from managing a Chipotle, let alone the Justice Department. It’s probably the latter, but then what, exactly, was the endgame? Baiting their most rabid and dangerous fans that there was a big revelation coming that they never bothered to verify existed? Not exactly 3D chess over there.
James Comey became a pariah because he felt compelled to inform Congress that he needed to correct his testimony over ultimately irrelevant and redundant documents that hadn’t previously come to his attention. Fast forward and the Justice Department is chatting up cable news about documents that don’t exist.
Or at least they now say don’t exist.
That the AG publicly misled the country is the real scandal that’s going to get buried as morons tweet about conspiracy theories.
Yes. Definitely someone way above the president wielding unprecedented power to defy Congress and the courts while disappearing people to El Salvador. And if the elite pedophiles are above Trump… does that mean he’s complicit with them? Because if he were fighting them wouldn’t they just get rid of him with all their power? In either case, it doesn’t seem like a reason to support him.[1]
Occam’s Razor continues to take an undeserved beating.
It certainly couldn’t be the natural and logical consequence of an administration headed by a guy who partied with Epstein and infamously word vomited his way through a conversation about the Epstein files, pre-butting that “it’s a lot of phony stuff.”
But I digress. The Justice Department is fully untethered from any professional crime-fighting standards. Letting conspiracy theorists shape department priorities, premature public proclamations, fast and loose handling of key evidence… this is how an agency squanders its credibility. I mean, they’re already making up fake quotes in court so there isn’t much credibility to be lost. But there’s something about the very public nature of this bumbling escapade.
This is about deeply serious criminal activity. Epstein was a monster. And the AG treated it as a carnival act. As it happens, that chyron from the February news hit now seems weirdly prophetic: The DOJ has lost its mission to fight crime.
[1] Also, someone really needs to talk to Musk about his bizarre failure to understand this book series. He would be the main villain of these books! It’s one thing for these tech bros to uncritically invent technologies that sci-fi authors warned us about, but it’s another for the richest right-wing figure in the world to constantly reference a book that’s not even subtle about the theme: “socialism would make everything better.”
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
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