By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER Associated Press
ARLINGTON, Va. (AP) — Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested Tuesday that she has no plans to step down as she dodged questions about Jeffrey Epstein and her clash with a top FBI official, seeking to press ahead with a business-as-usual approach in the face of right-wing turmoil.
Pressed by reporters during an announcement touting drug seizures, Bondi sidestepped questions about the fallout of the Trump administration’s decision not to release more records related to the wealthy financier’s sex trafficking investigation. With some high profile-members of President Donald Trump’s base calling for her resignation, Bondi made clear she intends to remain attorney general.
“I’m going to be here for as long as the president wants me here,” Bondi said. “And I believe he’s made that crystal clear.”
The announcement at the Drug Enforcement Administration headquarters represents an effort by Bondi to turn the page on the Epstein controversy and show that the Justice Department is forging ahead after days of mounting conservative criticism over the administration’s failure to deliver long-sought government secrets about Epstein. Bondi highlighted recent operations that led to the seizure of methamphetamine and fentanyl, including drugs that were hidden in a shipment of cucumbers across the Mexican border.
But her refusal to address the turmoil may only further frustrate conservative influencers who have been calling for transparency and accountability over the wealthy financier’s case.
“This today is about fentanyl overdoses throughout our country and people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl,” Bondi said in response to a question from a reporter about the Epstein files. “That’s the message that we’re here to send today. I’m not going to talk about Epstein.”
Trump has been seeking to tamp down criticism of his attorney general and defended her again earlier Tuesday, saying she handled the matter “very well.” Trump said it’s up to her whether to release any more records, adding that “whatever she thinks is credible, she should release.”
Asked about Trump’s comment, Bondi said the Justice Department memo released last week announcing that no additional evidence would become public “speaks for itself and we’ll get back to you on anything else.”
The turmoil over the department’s handling of the Epstein matter spilled into public view last week with reports of a internal clash between Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. Part of the dispute centered on a story from the news organization NewsNation that cited a “source close to the White House” as saying the FBI would have released the Epstein files months ago if it could have done so on its own. The story included statements from Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel refuting the premise, but not Bongino.
Asked Tuesday whether she believes Bongino should remain in his role, Bondi said only that she would not discuss personnel matters. Bondi stressed that she had spent the morning with Patel, adding that: “I think we all are committed to working together now to make America safe again and that’s what we’re doing.”
Bondi had already been under scrutiny after an earlier document release in February that she hyped and handed out in binders to conservative influencers at the White House lacked any new revelations. When that first release flopped, Bondi accused officials of withholding files from her and claimed that the FBI later turned over a “truckload” of evidence with thousands of pages of additional documents.
Despite promises that more files were on their way to the public, however, the Justice Department determined after a months long review that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” according to the memo released last week.