The Week: Epstein Revisited

• Big Bird applies for unemployment, moves in with Oscar.

• President Trump’s most vociferous media supporters have been in a full meltdown over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Last week, the Department of Justice and the FBI put out an unsigned two-page statement saying that no additional charges would be filed in the case. Rather than putting the matter to rest, the memo caused an uproar. Who’s to blame? Everyone who has built vast castles of fantasy atop the Epstein case, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Don Bongino prior to assuming their current positions, and especially Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi hyped Epstein revelations as AG by handing out worthless white binders supposedly full of Epstein files to sundry MAGA influencers and by seemingly saying in a TV interview that she had an Epstein client list on her desk. In fact, there is no evidence that there was any “client list” of those partaking of Epstein’s crimes. Nor is there serious evidence that Epstein was murdered, or that he was an agent of Mossad. Bondi should have heeded the DOJ practice of not speaking about cases if charges aren’t going to be brought, and that offense shouldn’t be compounded. Yet the documents a judge has ordered released in a civil case should be made public expeditiously. And it’s hard to understand why other materials related to the case—including the autopsy report on Epstein—haven’t been released. Questions about this case will never be answered to everyone’s satisfaction. But so far, the administration has only made it worse.

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• Big Bird applies for unemployment, moves in with Oscar.

• President Trump’s most vociferous media supporters have been in a full meltdown over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Last week, the Department of Justice and the FBI put out an unsigned two-page statement saying that no additional charges would be filed in the case. Rather than putting the matter to rest, the memo caused an uproar. Who’s to blame? Everyone who has built vast castles of fantasy atop the Epstein case, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Don Bongino prior to assuming their current positions, and especially Attorney General Pam Bondi. Bondi hyped Epstein revelations as AG by handing out worthless white binders supposedly full of Epstein files to sundry MAGA influencers and by seemingly saying in a TV interview that she had an Epstein client list on her desk. In fact, there is no evidence that there was any “client list” of those partaking of Epstein’s crimes. Nor is there serious evidence that Epstein was murdered, or that he was an agent of Mossad. Bondi should have heeded the DOJ practice of not speaking about cases if charges aren’t going to be brought, and that offense shouldn’t be compounded. Yet the documents a judge has ordered released in a civil case should be made public expeditiously. And it’s hard to understand why other materials related to the case—including the autopsy report on Epstein—haven’t been released. Questions about this case will never be answered to everyone’s satisfaction. But so far, the administration has only made it worse.