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This article is part four of a series called The Epstein Administration, in which we break through the noise of the Epstein files, report the truth, and demand transparency and accountability. We previously covered Pam Bondi’s exit from DOJ, Bondi’s dodging of her subpoena, and King Charles’s royal visit after former Prince Andrew’s arrest.

Back in February, we wrote that Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick should show himself the door after documents released by DOJ contradicted his past statements about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

He did not take our advice. But on Wednesday, Lutnick spoke with the House Oversight Committee about his Epstein ties. He appeared voluntarily, but only after House Democrats and some Republicans indicated that they would move to subpoena him.

The interview was also not videotaped, but a transcript is expected to be released.

For now, the public is yet again dependent on competing perspectives from partisan interests for information about the interview. We shouldn’t have to parse and read between the lines of the public comments different Committee members made to different outlets following the interview. The Committee owes more transparency to the American public—the fact that the members don’t seem to agree is an indictment of how they view their role.

Rep. James Walkinshaw (D-VA) said of the Committee’s meeting with Lutnick: “Earlier today, Chairman Comer said that he hadn’t seen any evidence of wrongdoing by Secretary Lutnick. And that’s actually the problem with the Trump administration, this Republican majority in Congress, because lying to the American people is wrongdoing. And Howard Lutnick lied to the American people.”

Walkinshaw is referring to Lutnick’s appearance on a podcast in October 2025 in which he claims he never interacted with Epstein after the two men’s initial meeting in 2005. DOJ subsequently released files evidencing that Lutnick visited Epstein’s island in 2011, and the men were in contact until 2018.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was probably trying to say that he had not seen any evidence that Lutnick was involved in Epstein’s alleged crimes. Comer, though, seems completely willing to take him at his word. Before the interview, Comer tepidly acknowledged that Lutnick “wasn’t 100 percent truthful” in past statements about his relationship with Epstein. Afterwards, he said that Lutnick was “very forthcoming” with the three interactions Lutnick has acknowledged he had with Epstein.

So, Lutnick has jumped from not “100 percent truthful” to “very forthcoming” on Epstein matters in just a few months? We don’t buy it.

Lutnick’s evasiveness about his relationship with Epstein exists within the broader context of a fumbling congressional investigation with nebulous objectives. The Committee’s lack of discernible goals—and the American public’s lack of clarity about those goals or what the Committee has uncovered—undermines its credibility.

Walkinshaw told reporters that Lutnick was asked by “a number of” Committee members “if he spoke to President Trump about today’s hearing, and he refused to answer that question.”

Based on what we know so far of Lutnick’s testimony, this refusal is more significant than any answers Lutnick actually gave. Why wouldn’t Lutnick answer the question? Isn’t his refusal to answer an answer in itself? If he hadn’t spoken to Trump, that would be an easy “no,” right?

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If Trump is interfering with or influencing a Congressional investigation, the public should know.

Former AG Pam Bondi will appear before the Committee on May 29. The Committee should ask her, as it asked Lutnick, if she spoke with Trump in preparation for her testimony.

As the Committee speaks with people who work closer and closer to the president himself, Trump’s absence from the investigation becomes harder to ignore. His testimony is undeniably relevant to the period of Epstein’s life that the Committee is investigating, as well as the DOJ’s release of its investigative files. If Trump will not appear for questioning voluntarily, he should be subpoenaed. If the Committee does not subpoena him, it should provide a clear explanation of this decision to the American public.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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A jam-packed livestream featuring Sarah Matthews and Bill Kristol, covering the on again/off again war in Iran, gas prices, the Arc de Trump, and more.

Sarah is the former Deputy White House Press Secretary and an advisory board member for Home of the Brave. Bill is also an advisory board member, a veteran of the George HW Bush White House, and editor at large of The Bulwark.

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Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

I spent two years, six months, nine days, and four hours in the United States Army. My first and only deployment was to Vietnam, where I served as an armorer in the 5th Battalion of the 42d Artillery. Back then, I stood up and raised my right hand to swear an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And if you go back and read that oath, you will see there is no expiration date.

Donald Trump did not serve. He took five draft deferments, claiming “bone spurs,” to avoid service in Vietnam. Later, he called avoiding STDs his “personal Vietnam.” He has insulted POWs, called service members “suckers” and “losers,” ordered that disabled veterans be shielded from public view, and asked of the dead at Arlington, “What was in it for them?” He has nothing but contempt for the military, and those of us who serve in it.

After seeing France’s Arc de Triomphe during his first term, Trump recently announced his own version, which would dominate Memorial Circle just outside the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery, across the river from Washington DC. Naturally, it is a massive, gaudy, horrid abomination of a structure, and—at 250 feet—would tower over most of the other monuments in the area.

For me, Arlington is hallowed ground. I’ve been there 10 times. Whenever I visit, I go see the Vietnam Wall first, where the names of more than 58,000 of my fallen brothers in arms are inscribed. Then I head across the river to Arlington to pay my respects. On your way in, you pass through Memorial Circle, which is the very space where Trump wants to put his arch. I can’t think of anything less fitting to welcome Americans to this particular place.

Arlington is a place for solemn, serious reflection, where we memorialize American heroes. The arch is a desecration of that.

Arlington House stands at the top of a hill inside the cemetery, looking out over the Arlington Memorial Bridge, the Lincoln and Washington monuments, and the Capitol dome beyond. When you stand there looking out, it is awe-inspiring. You are overcome by the feeling that you are surrounded by heroes—more than 400,000 of them—people who stood for America, fought for it, and died for it. To have that view disfigured by an archway honoring a president who has spent his life denigrating servicemembers is simply a bridge too far.

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As of today, the arch’s construction is tied up in litigation. To make absolutely sure it doesn’t proceed, I’ve started a petition (unaffiliated with Home of the Brave), which you can sign, to protect the sacred ground at Arlington. Our demands are simple, clear, and nonnegotiable:

“Immediately stop the proposed arch project. Protect the historic and memorial integrity of the corridor between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington National Cemetery. Respect the memory of those buried at Arlington and the service of all veterans, service members, and military families. Ensure that veterans and the public are heard before any such project moves forward.”

None of this should be controversial. It’s a national disgrace that this is a debate we even have to have in 2026. Shielding America’s fallen heroes from this kind of cheap, self-aggrandizing political theatre should be a no-brainer. Unfortunately, we have a president whose ego knows no bounds, an entire class of professional sycophants and enablers whose shamelessness and servility are without limits.

As long as that’s the case, and as long as the honor and dignity of American veterans is at stake, I’ll be standing here in the breach, saying: No way. Not on my watch. The oath I swore is alive in me today, just like it was all those years ago when I deployed to Vietnam. It demands that I do everything in my power to hold a mirror up to America, and say: When will it end? When will the American public stand up and say enough is enough?

Well, this is me saying enough is enough.

Ronn Easton is a Vietnam veteran and a participant in Home of the Brave, which exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy. You can sign his petition to stop the “Arc de Trump” here.

A jam-packed livestream featuring Sarah Matthews and Bill Kristol, covering the on again/off again war in Iran, gas prices, the Arc de Trump, and more.

Sarah is the former Deputy White House Press Secretary and an advisory board member for Home of the Brave. Bill is also an advisory board member, a veteran of the George HW Bush White House, and editor at large of The Bulwark.

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Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

Once in a while, a character comes along whose story is so outrageous, it simply defies imagination. Such is the case with Ambassador Paolo Zampolli, an Italian-American socialite, businessman, and modeling agent who befriended Trump in the 1990s. His claim to fame is that he introduced the future president to a Slovenian model named Melania who would go on to be the First Lady of the United States.

Now Zampolli sits on the Board of Trustees of the Kennedy Center. He is the president’s Special Envoy for Global Partnerships. And he has embraced the pithy catchphrase “$20 billion in 20 minutes,” because he has claimed that’s all the time it took for him to close an aircraft deal between Boeing and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Who is this man of intrigue? Zampolli, who claims to be related to Pope Paul VI, spent part of his childhood living in a castle outside of Milan. He sold his father’s business to a group controlled by Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon and Italian Prime Minister whose career was defined by scandals centered on tax fraud, corruption, and his notorious “bunga bunga” parties. In the mid-1990s, Zampolli moved to New York City, where he became a fixture on Page Six of the New York Post. He then secured a visa to the US for model Melania Knauss and introduced her to her future husband, Donald Trump, in 1998.

In 2002, a 17-year-old Brazilian model named Amanda Ungaro flew from Paris to New York aboard Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane. Zampolli, then 32, wooed Ungaro—first as a client, then as a romantic partner. (Zampolli says they did not become romantically linked until Ungaro was 19.) They later had a child together, but never married, and Ungaro remained in the United States on a string of temporary visas. By 2018, Zampolli and Ungaro had split up and their custody battle over their son unfolded publicly.

Zampolli continued to make headlines during Trump’s first administration for hosting extravagant parties at his mansion in Washington D.C. He also drew attention to himself when he shared explicit text messages describing sexual encounters with a woman he described as a “working girl.” He then left Washington when Biden was in the White House, but when Trump returned in 2025, Zampolli came back, too.

Then Zampolli called in a favor. In June of 2025, with the custody battle over her child still unsettled, Ungaro was arrested. She was charged with fraud, practicing medicine without a license, and other crimes. After learning of Ungaro’s arrest, Zampolli reached out to David Venturella, a top official at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and explained that Ungaro was living in the United States illegally as her last temporary visa expired in 2019.

Lacking legal status, Ungaro was placed in ICE custody. Fearing that she would lose custody of her and Zampolli’s son if she remained at the detention center, she asked the immigration judge to send her back to Brazil. Her son later joined her, but then returned to the United States to live with his father while his parents continue fighting in court.

Donald Trump promised to “drain the swamp” and staff his administration with “the best people.” Instead, he handed out jobs to people like Zampolli. What jumps out from Zampolli’s life is not just the cascade of outrageous actions, deporting your ex-parter to win a custody battle being first and foremost. It’s the fact that this is a person that Trump put into a government position of influence upon reentering office.

Even Jeffrey Epstein, an objectively despicable human, had unkind words about Zampolli. In a 2011 email to an Emirati businessman, Jeffrey Epstein wrote (in his typically typo-ridden form): “Be careful , zampoli [sic] is trouble . Lots.” Epstein added, “He tells stories to the press.”

In an attempted sleight-of-hand, Zampolli tried to spin his run-ins with Epstein into a positive. He said that his name didn’t appear very frequently in the Epstein files. But he couldn’t help but add, “At least I was included, because if you’re not on the list, you’re a loser, right?”

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Should such a person really be entrusted with conducting diplomacy on behalf of the United States?

Zampolli has flown under the radar—in part, because Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have done much of the heavy lifting in diplomatic negotiations with Iran. But, recently, Zampolli has been busy stumping for autocrats in European elections, lobbying Fifa to replace Iran with his native Italy in the upcoming World Cup, and otherwise monetizing access to his friend, the president. His hyper-active, unquestionably bizarre Instagram keeps the world informed of all this and more.

He stylizes himself as a political insider who operates with the president’s blessing. He called himself, “Boeing’s number-two salesperson in the world, right after the president.” And he didn’t mince words when he explained the mechanism that drives his dealmaking: “Whenever people see me, they want something. They want access to the president … I tell them: ‘Buy Boeing.’ If you want to make the president happy, buy Boeing. It’s the simplest thing in the world.” Sounds like he’s saying that US foreign policy is up for sale.

The appointment of people like Zampolli to positions of power in our government undermines our national credibility. Zampolli—whose qualifications are simply that he is loyal to Trump—doesn’t represent the best of America. He represents its antithesis.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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From the Oval Office, here’s what Trump had to say: “If anybody knows anything about crime, they know ‘86.’ You know what 86 [is]? It’s a mob term for ‘kill them.’ You ever see the movies?”

We decided to take the president up on his suggestion, and checked “the movies” for 86 references:

• In The Candidate (1972), Robert Redford is told to “86 the sideburns.”

• In The Grace Card (2010), Michael Joiner plays a cop who is so annoyed by his partner’s singing that he asks “can we 86 it, please?”

• In Make It Happen (2008), dancer Tessa Thompson says she’ll “just 86 the combo” in her routine.

• In Chef (2014), Jon Favreau tells his fellow cooks that an item on the menu is going to be “86”-ed.

• In a 2017 episode of the TV show Shameless, Emmy Rossum tells Richard Flood to “86” an ugly pocket door.

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You get the idea. Trump is almost certainly pretending he thinks the seashells post was a threat on his life because he wants Comey prosecuted. Citing “the movies” as his support is laughable on its face.

We have a handful of movies to recommend if Trump wants to learn the true meaning of “86”. He could have screened them in the White House Family Theater if he hadn’t already demolished it.

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On Iran, he has said it would take two weeks for him to achieve regime change, accomplish America’s military objectives, and end the war. (The war in Iran is still ongoing.)

And now comes Trump’s latest gambit: He is going to re-surface the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington DC. How long is it going to take? “Two weeks.”

Trump called the current state of the Reflecting Pool “filthy” and has retained his pool guy—who Trump called “a guy who’s unbelievable at doing swimming pools up the road”—to manage the project. The project will cost taxpayers millions of dollars, and it’s been reported that Trump’s first instinct was to go with a gaudy turquoise color.

This comes on the heels of Trump’s demolition of the East Wing of the White House to make room for a new $400 million ballroom. That project is now tied up in litigation, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from coating the White House in faux-gold veneering. And he wants to impose a massive, 250-foot “Arc de Trump” on the backside of the Lincoln Memorial.

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Our team headed to the National Mall to do a temperature check on how regular people feel about all these renovations. The consensus: Not great. People we spoke to called the changes “tacky,” “ridiculous,” and “absurd,” and pointed out that instead of focusing on re-decorating the capital, the president should be fixing the economy and ending the senseless war he started.

Andrea said “the ballroom ‘enhancements’ are ridiculous” and pointed out that “most people can’t afford health insurance. They can’t afford their mortgages. They can’t afford a proper place to live. They can’t afford to put food on the table. I think we need to focus our efforts on truly taking care of the American people.” Her friend Elleni called it “a real show of how much he doesn’t care about the public good.”

Aidan said “the Reflecting Pool renovations are a little tacky” and “get in the way of a lot more pressing topics” Aidan’s bottom line: “I don’t think any of these pet projects are a good use of the president’s time.”

We couldn’t have said it better. Thankfully this project will only take “two weeks.”

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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The context for this statement was the Department of Justice’s latest indictment of James Comey, on the charge that his “8647” seashells post constituted a threat on Trump’s life. This is taking place against the backdrop of the White House Correspondents’ Association attack, and the administration’s broader argument that the left is to blame for fomenting political violence.

Blanche went on to say: “His [Comey’s] alleged conduct is the same kind of conduct that we will never tolerate, and that we will always investigate, and regularly prosecute.” That’s an interesting statement coming from Blanch—“never tolerate,” “always investigate,” and “regularly prosecute”? Let’s run a quick fact-check on that.

Trump summoned a mob to Washington on January 6, told them to “show strength,” and refused to intervene for hours while they sacked the building and laid siege to police officers. Then he celebrated them as “great patriots” and, on his first day back in office, pardoned all of them.

Trump effectively said that Gen. Mark Milley, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, should be executed for “treason,” writing on Truth Social: “This is an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”

He posted a photo of himself swinging a bat at former Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Shortly after, Bragg’s office received a suspicious package containing white powder and a threatening note.

Amid the George Floyd protests, Trump threatened violence against protesters in the streets, posting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” He then had police forcibly clear Lafayette Square so he could pose for a photo-op holding a Bible upside down in front of a church, whose Bishop roundly and vociferously denounced him for it.

In response to the criminal charges against him in 2023, Trump threatened “death & destruction” and said that “such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country.”

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This is obviously an incomplete list. Trump has also threatened Iran with genocide, celebrated the death of Robert Mueller, encouraged his supporters to brutalize protestors, called neo-Nazis “very fine people,” and so on. He is the poster boy for political violence in America today.

Blanche has claimed that “this Department has charged dozens of cases involving threats against all sorts of individuals. We take these seriously, every single one of them.” That’s simply not true. Or at least it’s not true regarding Blanche’s audience of one.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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A jam-packed livestream featuring Sarah Matthews and Tom Joscelyn. Covering the new James Comey indictment, the charges against the SPLC, fallout from the White House Correspondents’ Association attack, and Trump’s ballroom.

Sarah is the former Deputy White House Press Secretary and an advisory board member for Home of the Brave. Tom is a Senior Fellow at Just Security and served as a senior professional staff member on the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the US Capitol, where he was principal author of the Committee’s final report. He previously was a trainer for the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

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This article is part two of a series called The Epstein Administration, in which we break through the noise of the Epstein files, report the truth, and demand transparency and accountability. You can read part one here.

Today the King of the United Kingdom arrives in Washington, D.C. for a visit with President Trump. During his royal visit, he will address Congress to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence from British rule. The last time an English monarch addressed a Joint Session of Congress was in 1991, when King Charles’s mother, Queen Elizabeth, spoke to a room packed with the stewards of our republic: elected, accountable representatives.

It’s already been an extraordinary year for the Crown. The arrest of the former Prince Andrew in February marked the first time that a senior royal had been arrested since 1647. The King, Andrew’s brother, released the following statement on the day that Andrew was taken into custody:

“I have learned with the deepest concern the news about Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and suspicion of misconduct in public office. What now follows is the full, fair, and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities. In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation.”

“The law must take its course,” the King added.

It’s a stunning statement; if you didn’t know that Prince Andrew was the younger brother of its author, you certainly wouldn’t suspect it. It’s as close to a full-throated endorsement of Epstein-related accountability as any world leader has offered. Andrew was charged with misconduct in public office, an offense not officially defined in any UK statute. Even before his arrest, King Charles stripped Andrew of his royal titles, honors, and duties and evicted him from his house because of his Epstein ties.

And this isn’t to say that the UK has handled the Epstein affair flawlessly, especially before the Bondi foot-in-mouth revival of the story last year. Reporting in the last several months revealed that the late Queen Elizabeth helped fund Andrew’s estimated $16 million civil settlement with Virginia Giuffre in March 2022. Royal biographer Robert Hardman says that the Queen’s decision to stand by her son “will go down as a mistake…and one that has outlasted her.” If familial loyalty and reputational protection guided her decision, King Charles’s actions have been diametrically different.

The UK’s movement toward accountability for one of its own is, if nothing else, a weighty symbolic gesture. But it’s time that the Epstein story’s importance stops being marked by symbolism. It’s past time for public officials to move beyond rhetoric and start pursuing criminal accountability for those complicit in Epstein’s crimes.

The UK has tried; the US has not.

How to Handle an Epstein Scandal: UK Schools US

Compare how the UK and the US have responded to the news that senior government leaders had relationships with Epstein. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is currently in hot water because he appointed Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US; Mandelson was also charged with the same crimes Andrew allegedly committed.

When the nature of Mandelson’s relationship to Epstein came to light in September 2025, Starmer’s government fired him. Still, British parliamentarians are calling for Starmer’s removal on the grounds that his appointment of Mandelson was a gross vetting failure. Starmer was not himself a friend of Epstein’s. Nevertheless, Starmer himself admitted he exercised “wrong judgment” in selecting Mandelson as his ambassador, and Starmer extended a public apology to the victims of Epstein’s abuse.

Contrast Starmer’s apology and the Crown’s willingness to excise Andrew from the royal family with the approach taken by the Trump administration. Our president vehemently denies his friendship with Epstein continued beyond the early 2000s, but he offers competing and contradictory accounts of their fallout. When the Wall Street Journal published a “bawdy” letter that Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein, Trump sued the Journal for defamation. (A judge subsequently threw out Trump’s case.) Several members of Trump’s current administration also have connections to Epstein—some even visited Epstein’s private island and pursued business opportunities with him well after Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting a minor for prostitution and had to register as a sex offender.

As far as we can tell, the only senior official who has lost their job over Epstein, theoretically, is former Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was fired not because of a personal relationship with Epstein, but because of her handling of the release of the files and the resulting failure to curb an enormous political headache for the administration.

Britain’s approach to Epstein-related revelations seems to be: acknowledge, apologize, and begin to pursue justice. The Trump administration’s approach is closer to: deny, attack, and try to sweep under the rug.

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How the Crown Dealt with Andrew, Without DOJ Help

In building their case against Andrew, the Metropolitan Police (the police force in Greater London) have requested relevant unredacted documents from our Department of Justice. DOJ has refused to publicly indicate if it will comply, but DOJ officials have approached the UK investigation with the same apparent indifference with which they’ve handled all Epstein matters.

A DOJ spokesperson said in a statement that “Prince Andrew was arrested for ‘misconduct in public office’ under UK law. No such federal crime exists [in the US]. As we have said repeatedly, if new evidence of a crime presents itself, we will investigate.”

Meanwhile, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Mark Rowley said in March: “I can’t speak about American policing strategies on this, because I haven’t plowed through their files. But in the U.K., we’re proud of operating without fear or favor, and we’ll go where the evidence takes us. And we’ve investigated, and sometimes prosecuted, eminent people in the past, and I’m sure we’ll do it again in the future.”

DOJ’s ongoing refusal to pursue Epstein prosecutions—or even legitimate investigations to determine if prosecution is warranted–might also be impeding the UK’s ability to hold its own citizens accountable. The Metropolitan Police are dependent on the “original documentation that the American teams have got, and a full, evidenced understanding of where that documentation came from.” The gap in urgency between the two agencies makes you wonder if DOJ is just disinterested in helping or intentionally obstructing the UK’s efforts.

It’s Past Time for DOJ to Do Its Job

If DOJ wants a fresh start under interim AG Blanche, they could start by immediately turning over any relevant unredacted documents to the British authorities. Rowley visited DC in March and met with Warren Stephens, the US Ambassador to the UK, to discuss sharing unredacted documents. It’s as yet unclear what, if anything, will come of that meeting, but we will keep you updated here if anything develops or if DOJ otherwise changes its approach.

The relationship between the UK’s investigation and the US’s nominal pursuit of justice should go both ways: both law enforcement institutions should have equal investment in investigating and prosecuting criminal activity related to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes. That they don’t—and that DOJ seems to view the Metropolitan Police’s efforts as some kind of inconvenience—is a problem reflective of the much larger problems with DOJ’s overall approach to Epstein and any potential co-conspirators.

So when King Charles comes to Washington to mark the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence from the UK, he might be uniquely suited to explain the dangers of an unchecked, undemocratic monarchy to the American public. British rule was overthrown by American patriots, but 250 years later, a king by another name sits atop our democracy. Trump would do well to follow the—of all people—King’s lead and start pursuing justice for the victims of Epstein’s crimes.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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Donald Trump is notorious for cheating on the golf course. In the book “Commander in Cheat,” the sportswriter Rick Reilly exhaustively chronicled the myriad ways in which the president bent and broke the rules throughout his long career on the links.

For example, Trump had a habit of simply moving the ball from bad spots to good ones, earning him the nickname “Pelé”—after the famous soccer player—because he so frequently kicks the ball to more favorable spots. Everyone from Mike Tirico to Samuel L. Jackson to Alice Cooper has confirmed that Trump is a shameless cheater. Sometimes, he even has his caddy do the dirty work for him.

It doesn’t seem to have dawned on the president yet how much of an utter disaster his second term is turning out to be. Recently, he has cited polls showing “100 percent” support for his policies, despite his actual numbers cratering. So, to drive the point home in a language the president might understand, we’ve put together a helpful scorecard of this administration’s failures.

We present to you… The Trump 2.0 Scorecard of Failure:

1. Iran – Having the Yips – The administration entrusted a real estate developer with conducting nuclear diplomacy on behalf of the American people. When the negotiations fizzled, Trump started bombing Iran, setting off a cascade effect that is rattling the global economy. A tenuous ceasefire, a blockade, and another failed round of negotiations later, this situation is quickly going from bad to worse.

2. Tariffs – Wrong Club – Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced with fanfare. Markets lost $6.6 trillion in two days. Trump paused them, giving rise to the acronym TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out), and the Supreme Court later struck down the tariffs entirely. Now the tariff refund process is causing headaches for everyone.

3. Lower Prices – Breakfast Ball – The core economic promise of Trump’s campaign was to cut costs. Ground beef prices hit record highs. OJ is up 28 percent. Gasoline is approaching $5 per gallon. 4.8 million people are expected to lose health coverage in 2026.

4. Epstein Files – Fore! – Trump promised full transparency. Instead, his Department of Justice failed to redact the personal information of victims—including nude photographs of young women—and withheld the documents specifically related to accusations against Trump himself. The administration’s botched release of the Epstein files only fueled the conspiracy theory rumor mill about the disgraced financier’s death.

5. DOGE – Sliced Drive – Trump and the head of DOGE, Elon Musk, promised $2 trillion in savings. At best, they delivered around $16.5 billion, while also costing taxpayers $135 billion to execute. We’re not mathematicians, but we did pass the third grade: That’s inefficient. A DOGE staffer admitted under oath that DOGE didn’t lower the deficit.

6. Ukraine – In the Bunker – Trump’s most explicit campaign promise was to end the war between Russia and Ukraine. Despite Trump’s efforts to humiliate Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky, the war in Ukraine rages on.

7. Birthright Citizenship – In the Rough – Trump signed an executive order on day one that sought to end birthright citizenship, a cornerstone of American democracy. His executive order has been blocked by every court that reviewed it, and is under review by the Supreme Court

8. Signal-gate – Adding the Wrong Person to Your Foursome – Senior officials planned a military strike on a Signal chat—and they accidentally CC’d a journalist. Then Hegseth shared the same classified details with his wife, brother, and personal lawyer. The Pentagon’s Inspector General confirmed it violated regulations. Nobody was fired.

9. Greenland – Water Hazard – Trump threatened to annex a NATO ally’s territory. NATO allies deployed troops against the United States in response. In typical fashion, Trump TACO’d, backing down while claiming victory.

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There is a troubling pattern here—Trump is really good at breaking things, at making life more expensive for regular Americans, at reveling in the misery of others. He’s good at building gaudy hotels, buggy social media platforms, and a knock-off version of the United Nations that includes autocracies but excludes democracies.

The “law of the jungle” ethos that pervades his administration is real and it’s destructive. Although we are making light of his failures, it’s important to reiterate what we know to be true: The damage this administration has caused is painful, irreparable, and ongoing.

The good news is that this administration is extremely unpopular. Per Nate Silver’s tracker, Trump is underwater everywhere—including on his signature issue of immigration. Voters have been electing new candidates around the country—even in the district that includes Mar-a-Lago—who have campaigned against Trump’s agenda. Voters see that Trump’s campaign promises were lies—or if not, their execution has been abysmal—and they are opting for change.

The incompetence of the current administration comes at a cost. On the course, Trump can—and does—cheat his way to victory, and even “wins” golf tournaments he never actually competed in. But here in the real world, inconvenient facts have a way of asserting themselves.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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“Several officials told me that Patel’s drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. They said that he is known to drink to the point of obvious intoxication, in many cases at the private club Ned’s in Washington, D.C., while in the presence of White House and other administration staff. He is also known to drink to excess at the Poodle Room, in Las Vegas, where he frequently spends parts of his weekends. Early in his tenure, meetings and briefings had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fueled nights, six current and former officials and others familiar with Patel’s schedule told me.

“On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated, according to information supplied to Justice Department and White House officials. A request for ‘breaching equipment’—normally used by SWAT and hostage-rescue teams to quickly gain entry into buildings—was made last year because Patel had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request.”

Yikes. The cynical observer might conclude that Patel’s lawsuit is an attempt to save face with his boss, Donald Trump, by counter-punching with a big, showy, over-the-top gesture. Certainly it has been reported that Patel is paranoid about losing his job, including in The Atlantic’s piece. And the administration just saw its third high-profile departure in many months, with Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer leaving her post amid a cloud of scandal. Patel might see sticking it to the media as his best chance of hanging on—for now.

Whether he stays or goes, Patel’s tenure as FBI Director is already a historically disastrous one. He has flown around to UFC fights and his girlfriend’s concerts using a private jet, costing the taxpayers millions of dollars. He has failed to deliver on his signature promise of “restoring trust” at the FBI. He was filmed chugging beer with the USA hockey team. He has watched his deputy, Dan Bongino, depart to resume his life as a trash-talking podcaster. And now, he’s resorted to suing a magazine because it reported a well-sourced story about his alleged drunkenness on the job.

Meanwhile, news recently broke that FBI agents investigated New York Times reporter Elizabeth Williamson in response to her writing unfavorable stories about Patel and his girlfriend. Per the Times’ own writeup of the matter, this is “an example of the Trump administration examining whether to criminalize routine news gathering practices.” Ultimately the FBI said it is not pursuing a case, but this is still a chilling example of government power being weaponized against the free press, and of Patel spending his time on personal grievances instead of the actual work of keeping Americans safe.

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It’s hard to see what Patel’s end-game is here. If anything, the lawsuit is likely to bring even more attention to the claims raised in The Atlantic’s article. But there is one recent precedent worth noting: The Wall Street Journal just prevailed in another, similar defamation lawsuit brought against it —in this case, by Trump himself. The judge dismissed Trump’s lawsuit on the grounds that “President Trump has not plausibly alleged that Defendants published the Article with actual malice”—a key standard for proving defamation. Maybe Patel should have read this ruling more closely.

The FBI Director is a crucial law enforcement position for protecting public safety. Having someone grossly incompetent at the helm of such an important organization poses a genuine risk to the lives of Americans. In the past Trump has called Patel “a wonderful guy, actually.” We’ll see how long that holds out.

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Sarah Matthews is an Advisory Board Member and Spokesperson for Home of the Brave, which exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy. She was White House Deputy Press Secretary until she resigned on January 6, 2021.

A livestream with Home of the Brave’s Michael Fanone and Sarah Matthews, breaking down the news of the day, including the Virginia redistricting results, Trump’s disastrous war in Iran, his beef with the Pope, and a where-are-they-now breakdown of the pardoned January 6 insurrectionists—plus much more.

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Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

This article is Part Three in a series called ‘Profiles in Corruption,’ in which we shine a light on the personal financial interests of people close to the president. Previously, we profiled Don Jr. and JD Vance.

Before Jared Kushner became a billionaire, he was the wealthy son of a New York real estate magnate and paid next to nothing in federal income taxes for several years running. The New York Times reported that between 2009 and 2016, Jared Kushner utilized real estate depreciation rules to avoid cutting checks to Uncle Sam. Kushner’s wealth quintupled from around $64 million in 2008 to $324 million in 2018.

The wealth he has accumulated since 2018 is even more staggering. Leveraging the rolodex he accrued as an advisor in the West Wing, Kushner launched a private equity firm in 2021 called Affinity Partners and quickly secured lucrative investments from abroad. In four years, he turned Affinity Partners into a $4.8 billion enterprise.

When you add up Kushner’s 100 percent ownership stake in Affinity, his 20 percent stake in Kushner Companies (his family’s real estate business), his $105 million dollar home in Florida, and his collection of artwork, cash, and other personal investments, Kushner’s total net worth now exceeds the three comma benchmark. He officially became a billionaire in September 2025.

Before we unpack how Kushner amassed his fortune, let’s ask: Why does this matter?

It’s not illegal for the president’s son-in-law to become rich; we are not alleging that Kushner has committed any crime. But since Kushner became a senior advisor in Trump’s first administration and an unofficial negotiator in the second, his business activity warrants close scrutiny. And his sprawling web of business deals with Middle Eastern governments raises concerns about whether Kushner can negotiate in good faith on behalf of the United States government.

Kushner’s story is part of a pattern: people in Trump’s inner circle are monetizing their proximity to the president and obtaining financial gains that wouldn’t exist without that access. The American people are left wondering whose interest is driving the administration’s policy decisions: the public’s interest, or the personal financial interests of the president’s friends and family.

Before he was part of the Trump family, Kushner was a scion of a different New York City real estate empire. Jared Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, started a real estate development firm in New York in 1985. But in 2005, Charles Kushner was found guilty of federal tax violations and an attempted plan to blackmail his brother-in-law by hiring a prostitute to seduce him, secretly film the encounter, and send the video tape to Kushner’s own sister, the man’s wife. The elder Kushner was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison. (As an aside, Donald Trump pardoned Charles Kushner in 2020. Today, Charles Kushner serves as the United States Ambassador to France and Monaco.)

While Charles Kushner was serving his time in jail, Jared was called up to run the family’s real estate business. At the time, he was a joint law-M.B.A. student at NYU, and he was dating Ivanka Trump. He and Ivanka got married in October 2009

Fast forward to 2017. His personal wealth had grown substantially, in part due to his savvy navigation of federal income tax rules as discussed above. His father-in-law became the President of the United States, and Kushner served as a senior White House advisor and Middle East envoy. This role was unprecedented for someone with no government experience, no Senate confirmation, and no apparent expertise in foreign policy. He was the architect of the Abraham Accords, the 2020 agreements that normalized diplomatic relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco. In the process, he built close personal relationships with the leaders of several Gulf states including Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known popularly as MBS.

When Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi was murdered in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018, US intelligence agencies concluded MBS ordered the killing. Kushner was, according to the New York Times, a key defender of MBS inside the White House—helping ensure the relationship between Kushner’s country and MBS’s survived. (Kushner also reportedly communicated with MBS through WhatsApp to conduct official business—a breach of protocol that presaged Signalgate.)

The $2 Billion Question

Six months after leaving the White House in January 2021, Kushner secured a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the country’s sovereign wealth fund, for Affinity Partners, his newly formed private equity firm.

Here’s what makes that remarkable: Saudi Arabia’s own investment board didn’t want to do it. According to the New York Times, a review panel that screens investment for the main Saudi sovereign wealth fund flagged Affinity Partners for inexperienced management, unsatisfactory due diligence, excessive management fees, and, in their words, “public relations risks” tied to Kushner’s White House role. Despite these concerns, Crown Prince MBS overruled the panel and approved the deal.

Also, interestingly, Kushner was not the only former Trump administration official soliciting investments from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund at the time. Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary during Trump’s first term, was also starting a new fund. Mnuchin, a man with decades of finance experience, received a $1 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, setting off alarm bells in Congress. Despite acknowledging the risks and concerns in investing in Kushner’s firm, the Saudis wound up investing twice as much money in Kushner’s firm as they did Mnuchin’s.

The Gulf money kept coming for Jared. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and the Abu-Dhabi based firm Lunate combined to invest $1.5 billion into Affinity Partners in 2024. Today, Affinity manages roughly $4.8 billion in assets—the majority of it from the same Gulf countries whose leadership Kushner courted while serving as a US official.

Congress noticed. In 2024, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Or.) called on then-Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel to investigate Kushner and Affinity Partners for potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. They alleged that Kushner was simultaneously acting as a “political consultant” to Trump and as what they called a “shadow diplomat” for Saudi, Emirati, and Qatari interests—while collecting tens of millions in management fees from those same governments.

After the 2024 election, when Republicans took control of Congress and the White House, the investigation into Kushner fizzled out.

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The Bottom Line

Today, Jared Kushner is traveling the world—as an unelected, not-officially-appointed official—actively shaping US government policy. At the same time, he is soliciting funds for his own private equity business. In the Middle East especially, the countries with whom Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, is negotiating are greatly impacted by American foreign policy. Kushner’s participation in nuclear negotiations with Iran is well-documented. At least three separate reports suggest that Kushner told his father-in-law that Iran was using the negotiations to “buy time,” which encouraged Trump to order airstrikes targeting Iran’s senior leadership.

Given his financial interests in the region and his close relationships with senior government officials in Gulf countries, Kushner cannot be trusted to negotiate on the United States’s behalf in good faith. He cannot be relied upon to offer judicious, unbiased advice to his commander-in-chief. And given his proximity to the president, we cannot trust that other countries view their investments in Kushner’s private equity firm purely through a financial lens.

With Kushner, geopolitics, personal financial interests, national security and U.S. foreign policy are inextricably linked. Right now, he is purporting to represent the interests of all Americans as a de-facto diplomat, while so much of his personal wealth is linked to related government policy decisions. That’s a conflict of interest in plain sight. The least he could do is abide by public financial disclosure rules, as executive branch officials and presidential appointees have done for decades. He could attempt to dispel the public’s doubt about potential conflicts of interest. Instead, Kushner insists he’s just a “volunteer” helping out the government; as a result he is exempt from the usual financial disclosure laws.

Still, Kushner continues to hold a murky, unofficial role in Trump’s administration. This allows Kushner to legally negotiate with foreign countries on the president’s behalf while seeking investments from foreign countries’ sovereign wealth funds for his private business. We have to wonder what is guiding Kushner’s actions: his private financial interests or the public interests of the United States? We have to wonder if our government’s foreign policy is being exchanged for private investment into the president’s son-in-law’s private equity firm.

Yesterday, Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote the following to Kushner: “You are now reportedly participating as ‘Special Envoy for Peace’ in negotiations on behalf of the United States government to address the roiling conflicts in the Middle East. At the same time, you are soliciting billions of dollars from Gulf Monarchies for your private business ventures while already managing billions of dollars of their money in your international investment firm ... To whom do your professional obligations and fiduciary duties belong?”

It’s a good question. If what’s best for Kushner’s bottom line is at odds with what’s best for the American people, can Kushner be trusted to faithfully defend the interests of the United States and suffer the personal financial hit?

Kushner is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. He is jet-setting around the globe, collecting $5 billion from foreign governments. Meanwhile, Americans are staring into a future where $5 per gallon gas prices are in the realm of possibility. We deserve better.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

At Home of the Brave, we’re not letting Tax Day pass by unacknowledged while Donald Trump wages a senseless war on your dime.

Trump campaigned on the promise that he would lower taxes and save federal dollars by refusing to involve the United States in foreign wars. So far, Trump has succeeded in reducing tax rates for the highest-earning Americans while spending billions of dollars waging a pointless, expensive war in Iran.

On NPR last week, retired Marine colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Mark Cancian, estimated that the war in Iran has cost U.S. taxpayers $28 billion so far.

Instead of spending billions in a war for no good reason, the U.S. government could have paid for a full year of school lunches for almost 30 million children. Or the government could have fixed the $11.5 billion estimated shortfall for Pell Grants, which more than 32 percent of undergraduate students in America depend on to help cover the cost of college. If the war ended tomorrow, the amount the Trump administration has already spent on it could cover the Pell Grant shortage more than twice over.

But the administration seems to have little interest in investing in programs for Americans, if Trump’s remarks earlier this month are any indication.

“The United States can’t take care of day care,” he said at the White House. “It’s not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all of these individual things.”

Investing in the education and futures of American children is not a central concern for Trump. When the administration decides it wants to wage a war in Iran, though, the country’s pockets are suddenly infinitely deep.

And the war in Iran isn’t the only way the Trump administration has used your tax dollars to fund their own pet projects.

According to a HuffPost analysis, in just the first year of his second term, Trump has cost the American taxpayer at least $101.2 million in travel and security expenses related to golf trips.

FBI Director Kash Patel’s trip to the Winter Olympics—which the public remembers for his partying with the men’s hockey team—was also funded by American taxpayers. And before she was fired, DHS Secretary Krisi Noem spent $108 million on a luxury jet complete with a bedroom and a bar, which the White House has since claimed for use by Melania Trump and select Cabinet secretaries.

From Iran to the golf course to private planes, the Trump administration spends your money like it doesn’t know—or doesn’t care—how hard you worked to earn it.

Americans only have so much say in how their tax dollars are spent. But when we’re forced to bankroll an unauthorized regime-change war while the government cuts funding to essential domestic services, the people’s frustration is more than warranted.

After all, it was the Trump administration that released a memo in February 2025 that claimed that “the American people have a right to see how the Federal Government has wasted their hard-earned wages.”

We couldn’t agree more.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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This weekend Donald Trump went on a social media tirade of religious proportions. He shared an AI slop image of himself depicted (literally) as Jesus Christ, applying a healing hand to the forehead of a man, while pious, red-blooded, presumably MAGA Americans—a soldier, a praying woman, a clinician—look on in awe. In the background eagles and fighter jets soar against fireworks, the American flag, and the Statue of Liberty.

He has since deleted it because, according to JD Vance, “a lot of people weren’t understanding his humor.” Trump also fired off a 334-word Truth Social missive attacking Pope Leo for all manner of heresies against MAGA. The post is too long and garbled to quote in full here, but the highlights include the following:

“Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy … I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t! … I don’t want a Pope who criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do … If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.”

The natural response to all of this is to say that someone needs to take grandpa’s phone away. In a sane world, the above would be grounds for instant disqualification from office. It isn’t just the deranged rambling, the nonlinear thinking, and the childlike inability to keep from lashing out in the stupidest possible way; it’s the fact that the president chose as the target of his ire the sitting Pope, the first-ever American Pope, a figure beloved by literally billions of people.

This isn’t the first time Trump has blasphemed in public. Last year, he Truthed an image of himself as the Pope. He spent this Easter not by solemnly pondering Christ’s resurrection, but by threatening the people of Iran in a profanity-laced tirade. In 2020, amid the Black Lives Matter protests, he had Lafayette Square forcibly cleared so he could stand in front of St. John’s Church holding a Bible upside down. This particular incident prompted Mariann Edgar Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington—who oversees St. John’s—to remark:

“The president just used a Bible, the most sacred text of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop for a message antithetical to the teaching of Jesus, and everything that our churches stand for … I am outraged.”

Further back in mists of time, when asked by a pair of journalists for his favorite Bible verse, Trump made it clear that he couldn’t name any:

Trump’s not the only member of the administration who’s taken to menacing clergy. In recent weeks, there were credible media reports that senior Defense Department officials had summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the Vatican’s former diplomat to the US, to the Pentagon. The occasion: a formal dressing down in response to the Vatican’s statements opposing war, a fairly mainstream message for any pontiff. To drive their point home, the officials even invoked the Avignon Papacy, a 14th-century arrangement in which the French crown asserted state control over seven successive Popes. Subtle!

All of this has further inflamed the MAGA base, which is already up in arms against Trump for his disastrous war in Iran, and the economic devastation it is creating here at home. It’s worth noting that, during all the religious controversies prior to this dust-up, the president’s closest boosters stuck by him. And they still may find their way back into his good graces, even after this latest heresy.

Still, the kind of blowback we’re seeing from some of MAGA’s leading lights right now is noteworthy, and could be a harbinger of a sustained crackup inside Trump’s coalition. A sample of the reactions so far:

• Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said of the Trump/Jesus image: “I completely denounce this and I’m praying against it!!!”

• MAGA influencer Riley Gaines posted: “Seriously, I cannot understand why he’d post this … God shall not be mocked.” (Trump responded that he’s “not a big fan of” her.)

• The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles wrote that “it behooves the President both spiritually and politically to delete the picture, no matter the intent.”

• Mike Cernovich argued that this kind of imagery “would not be tolerated for any other religion.”

• Milo Yiannopoulos wrote simply: “Oh hell no.”

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Things seem to be going from bad to worse for this presidency. The war in Iran is a failure. Trump didn’t honor his signature promise of bringing down prices, and instead has sent them skyrocketing. MAGA is in open revolt against all of this. And in response, Trump has chosen to dump gasoline on the fire by literally comparing himself to Christ while waging a rhetorical war against the man that billions of people regard as Christ’s representative on Earth. As Pepper Brooks once said, “It’s a bold strategy, Cotton. Let’s see if it pays off.”

Going all the way back to 2016, buy-in from the religious right was key to legitimizing Trump’s candidacy, and winning him the presidency both times. This was always a tenuous bargain. It remains to be seen whether these latest actions will permanently sever the arrangement. But, as one of the president’s own followers on Truth Social wrote in response to his post: “If you call yourself a Christian and you’re not outraged by this, you really need to re-evaluate your faith.”

Sarah Matthews is an Advisory Board Member and Spokesperson for Home of the Brave, which exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy. She was White House Deputy Press Secretary until she resigned on January 6, 2021.

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This article is part of a series called The Epstein Administration, in which we break through the noise of the Epstein files, report the truth, and demand transparency and accountability.

Slinking Out

Tomorrow, April 14, former Attorney General Pam Bondi was scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee about her handling of the release of the Epstein files. After she was unceremoniously fired by President Trump on April 2 (at least in part because of her handling of the files), though, DOJ—miraculously!—relieved her of her duties to testify under oath about the investigation.

Her failure to testify tomorrow compounds the affront of her last appearance before Congress. Bondi spent the duration of her Epstein-related testimony in February ducking and weaving and bullying, completely unwilling to engage with questions either probing or banal. The hearing itself yielded no useful insights about her DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files but did provide the most emblematic image of the whole saga: the now infamous photo of Bondi refusing to acknowledge the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein’s abuse, much less issue an apology for her department’s release of their personal information:

It’s fitting that she’s the face and the scapegoat of the cover-up; the administration has Bondi to thank for the resurrection of the Epstein story in the first place. Following her confirmation as Attorney General—after alleged sex trafficker and first-choice pick Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration—she teased on Fox News that she had the Epstein files “sitting on my desk” to review at the “directive” of “President Trump.” Since Bondi knocked over that first domino way back in February of 2025, the Trump administration has struggled to manage the Epstein story and done itself no favors by insisting that it’s a dead letter.

It was already a long shot, then, that Bondi would be any more forthcoming in the April 14 deposition than she was in February. But her absence is more telling about the future of the investigation going forward than her presence may have been. In a statement released by House Oversight Republicans, the reasoning offered for Bondi playing hooky is that “since she is no longer Attorney General and was subpoenaed in her capacity as Attorney General” she is no longer obligated to appear for questioning. Oversight Dems quickly refuted this, writing that “our bipartisan subpoena is to Pam Bondi, whether she is the Attorney General or not.”

The House Democrats are right. Bondi’s current title—or lack thereof—doesn’t change what she knows about the Epstein investigation or the release of the files. If anything, her ability to forgo testifying may be the silver lining of her sudden ouster from the Trump administration, for both her and the administration. What she knows will remain secret unless the House Republicans move to compel her testimony, which is unlikely. The more likely course—the Committee’s refusal to compel her appearance—will demonstrate, yet again, its indifference to unearthing any real or actionable insight about Epstein and his friends.

Unanswered Questions

It seems incomprehensible that an honest investigation by Congress (or DOJ) would not pursue every last answer from Bondi with urgency. If she had appeared for questioning tomorrow—or if she appears in the future (if the Committee follows through and subpoenas her in her “personal capacity”)—the public is entitled to answers from Bondi to at least the following questions:

1. A memo released by DOJ on July 7, 2025 states that “it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure [on Epstein] would be appropriate or warranted.” Several months later, upon the nearly-unanimous passing of the Epstein Files Transparency Act (“EFTA”), DOJ released more than 3 million documents to the public. Why were these records deemed inappropriate for public disclosure in July? Were you involved in that determination? Who else was involved?

2. On July 23, 2025, the Wall Street Journal reported that “in May, Bondi and her deputy informed the president at a meeting in the White House that his name was in the Epstein files, the officials said. Many other high-profile figures were also named, Trump was told.” On July 25, 2025, President Trump was asked by reporters if he had been told that his name appeared in the Epstein files to which he replied, “No, I was never—never briefed, no.” Did you brief him about his name in the Epstein files in May or any other time?

3. Sen. Dick Durbin wrote in July that his “office was told that [FBI] personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.” Were these records flagged? If so, once flagged, what happened to these records? Were records mentioning Trump withheld? If so, how many such records have not been publicly released?

4. In September 2025, a White House official told the New York Times that “helping Thomas Massie and Liberal Democrats” with their “attention-seeking” discharge petition to compel a vote on the release of the Epstein files, “while the DOJ is fully supporting a more comprehensive file release effort from the Oversight Committee, would be viewed as a very hostile act to the [Trump] administration.” Did any of your conversations with the Trump White House provide insight into why they would have seen support of the Epstein Files Transparency Act as “hostile”? Did the president or anyone in his administration suggest that DOJ releasing more documents on Epstein was similarly “hostile”? What steps was DOJ taking in September 2025 to “[support] a more comprehensive file release effort”?

5. Did you, interim AG Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, or anyone else at DOJ speak personally with President Trump about your rollout of the Epstein files at any point—either on their contents or manner of release? Did anyone speak with Susie Wiles? Stephen Miller? JD Vance? If so, did any White House personnel instruct DOJ on what files to release publicly (or not) or the process for doing so?

6. A 2015 memo released by DOJ revealed that Jeffrey Epstein was the subject of a years-long U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation previously unknown to the public. When Sen. Ron Wyden sought an unredacted copy of the memo, he alleges that then Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche moved to prevent the DEA from releasing the requested information. Why did Blanche intervene? Did he do so at your—or anyone else’s—behest?

7. On September 16, 2025, FBI Director Kash Patel said under oath that the government had “released all credible information” and that the review of the files had revealed “no credible information, none” that Epstein “trafficked to other individuals.” Likewise, the aforementioned July 2025 memo states that “we did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.” Are you confident that the following men’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein were sufficiently investigated by previous Attorneys General: Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, Donald Trump, Howard Lutnick, Jes Staley, Leslie Wexner, Leon Black?

8. When DOJ posted millions of Epstein-related documents more than a month after the EFTA mandated their release, one such document included an email exchange between Epstein and a redacted second party. In it, Epstein writes to the second party, “where are you? are you ok , I loved the torture video.” After congressional pressure, the second party was identified as Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem. The EFTA mandates that “no record shall be withheld, delayed, or redacted on the basis of embarrassment, reputational harm, or political sensitivity, including to any government official, public figure, or foreign dignitary.” On what grounds was Sulayem’s name redacted? Was Sulayem or anyone questioned about the content of this email exchange?

9. Ghislaine Maxwell’s December 2025 habeas petition—filed from her new home, a minimum security prison—claims that “[c]onfidential settlements” were reached with “25 various men” in relation to Epstein’s abuse. Who are these 25 men, if they exist? Were some, all, or any of these men identified or investigated by your DOJ? Why, in your view, have none of the people previously investigated by federal authorities as potential co-conspirators been charged?

10. As Florida Attorney General, you worked to combat human trafficking with an emphasis on the sexual exploitation of women and children. During your tenure, you were quoted as saying that “human trafficking robs people of their dignity and deprives them of their most basic human rights.” You also listed the goals of your anti-trafficking initiative as the following: “make Florida a place with zero tolerance for human trafficking; to toughen state laws against offenders in line with federal statutes; and to increase criminal penalties for offenders [and] designate those convicted as sex traffickers as sexual offenders and predators known by all.” Your stated commitment to protecting victims of human trafficking is at odds with the experiences of Epstein survivors whose statement on your firing begins with “Attorney General Pam Bondi failed us.” What steps did you take as Attorney General to restore the “dignity” and “basic human rights” of the survivors of Epstein’s trafficking ring? Why didn’t you acknowledge the victims present during your February testimony?

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Who Do You Serve?

As Attorney General, Bondi’s job was to represent the United States—not the president alone. After her firing, any residual fealty to Trump is interpersonal; her moral and legal obligation to survivors of Epstein’s abuse and to the American people is unchanged.

If House Oversight agrees, they should compel Bondi’s testimony and pursue a detailed line of questioning about DOJ’s operations under Bondi and the contents of the Epstein files. After all, she boasted about her Department’s transparency on the Epstein matter; answering questions, then, should be no trouble at all.

By letting her off the hook, House Oversight will demonstrate yet again that its investigation is searching only for politically expedient answers. Bondi—and by extension, Trump—remains protected by a Committee seemingly unwilling to probe unflattering information about the administration and its allies.

Bondi may be out, but the Trump-led cover-up of the Epstein files shows no sign of leaving with her. Not surprising, since it seems the strategy was never Bondi’s to begin with.

Shoes to Drop

Upcoming depositions to watch:

• Tedd Waitt, former romantic partner of Ghislaine Maxwell: April 30, 2026

• Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce: May 6, 2026

• Tova Noel, prison guard on duty at time of Epstein’s death: May 18, 2026

• Lesley Groff, Epstein’s executive assistant covered by the 2008 non-prosecution agreement: June 9, 2026

• Bill Gates, Co-Founder of Microsoft and acquaintance of Epstein: June 10, 2026

What questions do you still have about Bondi’s Epstein investigation? Share them in the comments below.

Home of the Brave exists to show Americans the real-world consequences of this administration’s policies, and to highlight what bravery looks like in defense of American democracy.

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