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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   13973 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 30, 2026

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Bondi is vulnerable as Republican frustrations grow over DOJ Epstein handling

Like a radio built to pick only one channel — tuned to Mr. Trump’s demands — Ms. Bondi has gained and maintained her position through her attentiveness, loyalty and obedience. That makes her uniquely vulnerable to shifts in Mr. Trump’s opinion. In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has privately sent mixed signals. He has discussed firing Ms. Bondi, according to four people familiar with the conversations, and replacing her with Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. He has complained about her shortcomings as a communicator and vented about what he sees as the department’s lack of aggressiveness in going after his foes, according to people who have spoken to him recently, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. But he has also praised her loyalty in public, and he speaks with her several times a week, sometimes to seek advice or temperature-test ideas, a person close to Ms. Bondi said. And on Wednesday, she accompanied the president to the Supreme Court to watch arguments in the birthright citizenship case.

The greatest danger Ms. Bondi now faces, in the view of current and former officials, is the possibility that she has become expendable to Mr. Trump, who was able to quell Republican criticism of his hard-line immigration policy by removing Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary. Some of the protection Ms. Bondi enjoyed from G.O.P. lawmakers in the wake of Mr. Trump’s unifying victory in 2024 appears to be eroding ahead of the midterm elections, with congressional Republicans increasingly willing to call out the attorney general over what they see as her mishandling of the investigative files.

Ms. Bondi had no one else to blame for the major mistake she committed after being sworn in early last year. In February 2025, she appeared on Fox News to hype “breaking news” on the Epstein case, while also claiming that she had key documents, including Mr. Epstein’s client list, sitting on her desk. Soon after, she showed up at a gathering of far-right influencers at the White House, where she handed out half-filled white binders labeled “Epstein Files: Phase 1” that contained virtually no new information, prompting accusations of a cover-up. Her team suggested there might not be a Phase 2. Several of Ms. Bondi’s friends now describe that episode as a catastrophic miscalculation from which she might never recover.

Last July, she issued a joint statement with the F.B.I. concluding that there was no basis for new charges, no “client list,” no evidence that Mr. Epstein had blackmailed “prominent individuals,” and that releasing sealed investigative files from Mr. Epstein’s trial would only endanger the victims. The backlash among far-right influencers was instant and threatened to sap the president’s support with his base. Ms. Bondi reversed course and reopened the inquiry. Around that time, Ms. Bondi told Mr. Jordan and other members of the Judiciary Committee that “all that’s left in there is child pornography, and nobody wants to see that,” according to Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky.

The two top F.B.I. officials, Kash Patel, the bureau’s director, and his deputy, Dan Bongino, had been pushing for a much broader release of the Epstein material after finding little in the files that added to what was already widely known about the president’s interactions with Mr. Epstein. Behind the scenes, Ms. Bondi began butting heads with Mr. Bongino, who repeatedly urged her to release as many documents as possible to stave off a political disaster. Ms. Bondi was considerably more cautious, citing her previous experience as a local prosecutor in Tampa handling trafficking cases, saying that releasing a trove of unredacted documents could reveal details about Mr. Epstein’s victims, including children. Her conflict with Mr. Bongino escalated into an angry confrontation at the White House last July, when an irate Ms. Bondi accused Mr. Bongino of leaking unflattering information about her to the news media.

But the main source of stress on Ms. Bondi appears to be Mr. Trump himself. He has relentlessly pressured Ms. Bondi and her deputy, Todd Blanche, to go after targets of his choosing even after the failure of cases brought against the former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, which were brought over the objections of U.S. attorneys appointed by Mr. Trump. At a reception for U.S. attorneys last December, Mr. Trump berated the top federal prosecutor in Maryland, Kelly O. Hayes, for not indicting Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and an outspoken critic, for mortgage fraud, as Ms. Bondi and stunned officials looked on, according to a person who attended the event. Ms. Bondi and Mr. Blanche have gotten the president’s message. They have stepped up efforts to investigate several other Trump targets, including the Democratic fund-raising group ActBlue and John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director. They have also pushed prosecutors to investigate a former White House aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, whom the president has accused of lying about his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two officials briefed on the effort.

So, republicans are mad that the epstein files are being slow-walked, and Trump is mad that she isn't successfully destroying his enemies with lawsuits. The interesting detail is that Patel and Bongino were pushing for more releases, presumably believing that it wouldn't incriminate Trump. In the end, they managed to piss off everyone and accidentally release personal photos of victims.

There hasn't been as much turnover in Trump's 'A' department as in his first administration (although still more than the last six presidents), because Trump took a more active role in selecting loyalists. We'll see how that continues over the next year with the Iran war and more unfriendly SCOTUS rulings.

Edit: And she's gone

Edit: And she's gone

Mashallah. I'm not a Marxist but this second trump admin is reminding me of that old quote about how history happens twice, first as tragedy, then as farce. A good 30% or so of my white western friend group at this point absolutely refuses to visit the US while Trump remains president and this is only growing, not because they're personally afraid for themselves but because they don't want to patronise the US anymore. I expect this number to only go up over the next year or so.

I'm going to register my concern that at least three high level administration officials with portfolios that include counterterrorism have exited the administration in the past month, as we engage in an assymetric war with the premier state sponsor of terrorism.

Join the club, friend.

Though…which three do you have in mind?

Noem, Kent, Bondi.

Gabbard's office has been essentially sidelined as well, but she's still there.

Are there more I'm not thinking of?

Not that I know. I was trying to figure out what Bondi’s actual experience was.

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