Pam Bondi Exits the Epstein Administration

Introducing our new series tracking the Epstein cover-up.

Credit: The White House

This article is the first in 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.

Blow the Safe

In a White House tape recording from 1971, President Nixon urges his deputies to obtain a set of classified Vietnam War documents that he believed were locked in a safe at the Brookings Institution. He commands his staff: “Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.”

“Watergate” is synonymous with “cover-up” in American politics. Even after Bill Clinton was impeached by Congress after lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky, Watergate’s stature in the American corruption canon remains unchallenged.

Watergate has finally met its match with the government’s handling of the Epstein files.

The Epstein Administration is Home of the Brave’s newest series in which we will “blow the safe”—we’re going to get the documents and interrogate the administration’s mishandling of the Epstein files and shed light on the connections and storylines that people like Attorney General Pam Bondi tried (and failed) to suppress. In the wake of Bondi’s sudden firing, we’re refusing to allow the Epstein story to leave with her. We refuse to stop talking about the Epstein files precisely because that’s exactly what they seem to want.

Just as our Profiles in Corruption series works to highlight how the Trump presidency has supported the financial interests of his inner circle, The Epstein Administration aims to dissect the ways in which those in and around the Trump administration have worked to prevent public—and potentially legal—accountability for those named in the Epstein files, including the president himself.

Two Decades of Indifference

Bondi announced over a year ago that the Epstein client list was sitting on her desk for review, and ever since, DOJ has bent over backward to suppress the Epstein files and quiet the public calls for their release. When its stonewalling efforts failed to redirect public attention, DOJ finally released some of the Epstein files, but did so in the most haphazard, convoluted way possible, failing to protect victims’ identities but hiding the names of Epstein’s alleged co-conspirators.

The Department still continually chooses to violate the Epstein Files Transparency Act—while claiming it is a part of “the most transparent administration in American history”—and refuses to provide straightforward answers to even basic questions about the files that have not been released and what, if any, criminal investigations remain ongoing.

When new information is revealed by survivors, journalists, and advocates, DOJ doubles down on its public refusal to open a criminal investigation of any Epstein co-conspirator. It moves glacially to respond to criticism and calls for more information, unmoved by the optics that the administration simply does not care to investigate Epstein’s crimes or his alleged accomplices.

Likewise, the House Oversight Committee, which opened its own investigation of Epstein and DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files in August, after the story’s unique refusal to die off, has done little to get at what really happened—whether it be in Epstein’s homes, in aborted prosecutions, his federal prison cell. The Committee members have not asked difficult questions in depositions or even called the witnesses who worked closely with Epstein himself or on DOJ’s related investigations, focusing instead on bringing in high-profile people with seemingly little relevant information. The Committee convenes hearings, holds closed-door depositions inside and outside DC, and stages other forms of political theater, but refuses to tangibly hold Epstein’s enablers and accomplices to account.

As the government slowly trickles out new information while attempting to downplay or hide anything truly noteworthy, the press has published hundreds and hundreds of articles, seizing on the limited available evidence. The Epstein news cycle has never truly died, but it has been flooded. One arrested European leader associated with Epstein and his crimes gets confused with another; a powerful US businessperson steps down from their position in disgrace, while someone else remains in place despite cries for their removal. The relevant players in the Epstein files and in the government get lost and, in many respects, appear interchangeable. In the onslaught of information, it is challenging to unpack what Epstein did decades ago and what the administration is doing now, particularly as more immediate issues like the war in Iran and the rising costs of everyday necessities take priority.

Oversight from the American Public

Accountability, then, must be chased from the outside. We may not be able to call witnesses or access redacted documents, but we can resist the administration’s efforts to make us forget about its failings and Epstein’s crimes. We can continue to push for answers and insist anything short of full accountability is unacceptable.

Here at Home of the Brave, we don’t believe that the public has lost interest in the Epstein story, and we don’t believe its hunger for transparency and accountability has been satisfied.

We want to break through the noise. The Epstein Administration will publish essays designed to highlight the corruption that pervades every layer of the Epstein story. We will track important events, draw connections between released files, and continue to raise questions. We will highlight important reporting and pull apart insufficient answers offered by the powerful.

First up, we will examine Pam Bondi’s role in the release of the Epstein files, her unceremonious firing, and her upcoming Congressional testimony on April 14 (assuming she shows up). We’ll also look at how her interim successor navigates his first few weeks at the helm of the agency that Bondi left in shambles.

It’s been almost a year since the DOJ and FBI released an unsigned memo trying to turn the page on Epstein, writing that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” Almost a year of DOJ court filings riddled with half-truths, performative congressional hearings, and endless attempts to divert Americans’ attention. Every attempt to turn the page has raised more questions than answers. We will try turn every page—to blow open the safe—and strive to hold our leaders to a higher standard.

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.