Opinion
By Steve Nicklas, 7-15-25
Pam Bondi is in over her head as the new U.S. attorney general. She is flailing, to the point of sinking the Trump administration through her misstatements and misjudgments and miscues.
The former Florida attorney general has not lived up to elevated expectations on the national level. Or kept bold promises to “investigate the investigators” or to be overtly transparent to the public.
In her latest gaffe, Bondi has botched the handling of the files relating to serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. A bewildered Bondi announced the sudden closure of the Epstein case and denied a “client list” exists last week.
This ill-timed, fumbled announcement has irked staunch MAGA supporters as much as Bernie Sanders attending a Trump rally. Trump acolytes Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn and Megyn Kelly have rebuked Bondi’s handling of the sensitive matter.
The icing on an explosive cake is Bondi’s assertion that Epstein hung himself in a jail cell with no cameras and no jailers and no noose other than a bed sheet. Few are buying what they are peddling.
“Please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR is not going away,” posted Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser. With so many unanswered questions, “Moving forward on so many other monumental challenges our nation is facing becomes much harder.”
Former White House strategist and Trump loyalist Bannon expressed his displeasure to young conservatives at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit. “It’s deeper than Epstein,” Bannon told them. He predicts electoral consequences for Republicans.
“For this to go away,” Bannon said, “you’re going to lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we’re going to lose 40 seats in (2026). We’re going to lose the presidency.”
Kelly, with whom Trump has had a rocky relationship, is reliably in his corner now. However, Kelly said on X that she is skeptical of the decision on Epstein.
“Bondi misled on it (until she didn’t) and Trump is quick to forgive a loyal soldier …” Kelly said. “There is a scandal that’s being covered up and it’s at his direction.”
I was wrong in touting Bondi’s nomination six months ago, after the Deep State torpedoed Matt Gaetz (Trump’s initial AG nominee). Previously, Bondi had a reputation as a hard-nosed legal brawler who didn’t back down, so she brought hope. Now the million-dollar question is how long Trump keeps her as AG.
Trump is still backing Bondi, for now. However, he risks losing loyalist Dan Bongino, his deputy FBI director who took a leave to protest Bondi’s sudden reversal. Bongino’s boss, Kash Patel, also boasted about releasing the Epstein files as well as the JFK and Martin Luther King archives throughout his confirmation hearings.
Patel looks like he just saw Epstein’s ghost, wide-eyed and sporadic. It’s rumored that many prominent names are connected with Epstein’s sickening sex trafficking of young women, and the fallout from revealing them could cause far-reaching tremors.
Throughout his campaign, Trump said he would declassify federal files on these matters. He (and Bondi) has not done so. But Trump ran on promises like these to differentiate himself from the previous Biden administration, with its closed-door policies. His supporters salivated over the idea, but are left clutching empty promises.
It’s not like there is no “there there.” Epstein’s queen of horror Ghislaine Maxwell is imprisoned for 20 years. Many young women exposed to the sexcapades are scarred forever.
So something was horribly wrong. Sensitive court records from the Maxwell trial are still sealed. Bondi could unseal these documents.
Bondi’s name has been dragged through the mud of social media. One defensive tactic is to ride out the miscalculation until another news cycle makes it go away.
But it’s not going away. Political opponents are propping themselves up with Bondi’s and Patel’s and Trump’s false vows. Leaving an empty feeling for Trump’s diehard base.
It’s the biggest loss in six months of winning, winning, winning as Trump likes to say. It’s overshadowing everything else right now.
Trump is losing, losing, losing on this issue.
Steve Nicklas is a financial advisor and award-winning columnist who lives and works in Nassau County.
