Bongino Back At FBI As Trump Admin Prepares To Release More On Epstein
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino has returned to work after a disagreement with Attorney General Pam Bondi over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation prompted him to consider resigning.
Multiple sources said that Bongino returned to work after taking several personal days nearly two weeks ago, but his future with the agency remains unknown following the heated discussion with Bondi.
The FBI and DOJ delivered a document this week summarizing a review of the case against Epstein, who died in his Manhattan prison cell on August 10, 2019.
The handling of the Epstein files has sparked a schism within Trump’s MAGA supporters, with some supporting Bongino if he had quit in protest of the case’s alleged lack of openness.
Some MAGA supporters have asked that Bondi, who claimed in a February Fox News interview that Epstein’s client list was on her desk “to be reviewed,” be the one forced out of the administration. Trump has indicated that calmer heads should prevail.
Before entering the Trump administration, Bongino had long suspected there was more to the Epstein case than authorities were revealing.
The DOJ is pushing to unseal long-secret grand jury transcripts from the Epstein case, claiming “intense public interest” in the famed sex trafficking probe, as directed by Bondi.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche filed the motion in Manhattan federal court, urging a judge to release transcripts from Epstein’s 2019 grand jury proceedings and the prosecution of Epstein’s convicted associate, Ghislaine Maxwell, as part of the department’s new transparency push.
Earlier this month, the DOJ and FBI released a memorandum outlining an “exhaustive review” of their Epstein investigation files. That internal assessment attempted to discover whether any evidence might support prosecuting more individuals but determined that “no such evidence was uncovered” against any uncharged third parties.
Since the memo’s release on July 6, authorities believe public interest in its findings has remained high.
While the department continues to support the memo’s findings, the filing underscores that “transparency for the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration.” Given the strong public interest, the DOJ informed the court that it is preparing to unseal the underlying grand jury transcripts to shed light on its investigation into the Epstein case.
The DOJ stated that it will cooperate with prosecutors to redact all victim names and personal identifying information from the transcripts before they are released.
On July 2, 2019, a New York grand jury indicted Epstein, 66, on sex trafficking charges. On August 10, 2019, just over a month later, he committed suicide in his detention cell while awaiting trial, leading to the case’s dismissal.
Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s longstanding confidante, was charged by a grand jury in 2020 on various counts of trafficking and coercing children.
In December 2021, a grand jury found her guilty and sentenced her to 20 years in jail. Maxwell’s convictions were affirmed on appeal in 2024, and she has petitioned the United States Supreme Court to examine her case.
Grand jury hearings are often kept private by law, or as the motion states, “a tradition of law that proceedings before a grand jury shall generally remain secret.” However, the filing acknowledges that this custom “is not absolute.”
Federal courts have acknowledged “certain ‘special circumstances’” in which publishing grand jury documents is permissible notwithstanding the typical exclusions, such as when a case is of major public or historical value.
“Public officials, lawmakers, pundits, and ordinary citizens remain deeply interested and concerned about the Epstein matter,” the motion notes.
The motion points out that a Florida judge last year ordered the release of some Epstein grand jury records after concluding the financier was “the most infamous pedophile in American history” and that the facts of Epstein’s case “tell a tale of national disgrace.”
By the DOJ’s account, the sealed grand jury transcripts are “critical pieces of an important moment in our nation’s history,” and “the time for the public to guess what they contain should end.”
