President Trump has directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to work on releasing grand jury transcripts in the case of Jeffrey Epstein.
On Thursday, The Wall Street Journal published a story stating that Trump apparently sent Epstein a birthday letter in 2003 that featured a drawing of a nude woman and a strange, imaginary dialogue between the two men. The president denies the report and said he will sue the publication.
On Thursday, Trump said he had directed Bondi to release all “pertinent” transcripts on the case.
It’s unclear exactly when any testimony may go public. The Justice Department signaled it planned to file Friday, asking a judge to unseal transcripts.
The Justice Department last week released a memo concluding there was no evidence suggesting the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender kept a “client list” to blackmail high-profile individuals. The memo also found no evidence to suggest foul play in Epstein’s death, which had previously been ruled a suicide.
Epstein, a 66-year-old millionaire financier with a private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands, died in federal custody in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
The memo spurred fierce backlash from many Trump supporters, who had long called on the government to release material on Epstein that they argue would expose wrongdoing at the highest level of elite circles.
Dan Bongino, the Deputy Director of the FBI, reportedly threatened to leave the bureau if Attorney General Pam Bondi remains on the job due to her handling of the Epstein files, a source close to Bongino told The Daily Wire.
One source close to Bongino predicted to Axios, “He ain’t coming back.”
Trump has defended Bondi over the latest fallout, telling reporters earlier this week: “She’s handled it very well, and it’s going to be up to her, whatever she thinks is credible she should release.”
CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig immediately attacked President Donald Trump’s pledge to release the grand jury testimony.
On CNN NewsNight, Honig, a former federal prosecutor, explained why releasing only grand jury testimony would be a far cry from the full document dump some in the Trump administration promised.
“What Donald Trump said to do there is not to turn over all the Epstein files,” he noted. “I really wanna make sure people understand the context here of what he did say he wanted released, because it is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of those files.”
Honig further explained that the FBI stated that the size of the Epstein files is about 300 gigabytes.
“I talked to a tech guy,” he added. “That’s equal to about 100,000 ebooks, ok? So, think about a book, 300 pages. A hundred thousand of those. That’s how much information’s in the entire Epstein file. The grand jury transcripts means the written transcript that the court reporter takes of whoever went into the grand jury and testified. So already, you are leaving out tons of documents. Most witnesses, as a federal prosecutor, don’t even go into the grand jury. They just talk to you in a conference room, not in the grand jury. So we’re talking about 1%, 2%. And it’s not as if Pam Bondi can just release this stuff tomorrow. She has to go into a court. She has to explain to and convince a judge this stuff needs to be turned over.”
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