The butterfly effect of a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender’s death continues to be felt years later, as the highest levels of Donald Trump’s second administration are embroiled in a bitter feud over Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged “client list.”
“This fight is taking up way too much of my fucking time,” one senior administration official notes, referring to the bruised egos, clashes between senior-level personnel, frustrations from some of the president’s base, and intra-governmental allegations of leaking to the media.
The Department of Justice announced in a memo on Sunday that Jeffrey Epstein had indeed killed himself, that his potentially explosive “client list” doesn’t exist, and that the administration is effectively closing its case on the convicted sex offender, whose 2019 death in prison has been a lightning rod for conspiracy theorists — especially those who supported Trump, never mind the president’s own connections to Epstein.
Rolling Stone reported that the Trump administration was bracing for a MAGA revolt over its nothing to see here-style memo. MAGA revolted as expected, with scores of prominent right-wing influencers expressing outrage over the memo. Many are calling for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired, and some even seem to be souring on the president. “Trump has become the Deep State. What is more Deep State than covering up for pedophiles?” someone asked former Trump adviser Steve Bannon at a MAGA event on Friday.
It isn’t just outside onlookers and online MAGA diehards who are miffed. Rolling Stone can confirm that FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have also been furious since the memo’s release, and more broadly over Bondi’s handling of the Epstein investigation, including the public rollout of federal conclusions.
Laura Loomer — a far-right conspiracy theorist who is close with Trump and was also apoplectic over the memo — posted to X on Friday that Patel and Bongino are “LIVID” at Bondi, and that Bongino even took the day off from work on Friday. Axios corroborated soon after that Bongino ditched work on Friday after clashing with Bondi over these matters, with CNN adding that Bongino has talked to people about potentially resigning over the memo.
The FBI and Justice Department press offices did not immediately respond to messages from Rolling Stone Friday afternoon.
Two Trump officials, and another source with knowledge of the matter, tell Rolling Stone that Patel and Bongino have been privately blaming Bondi, with Bongino in particular taking things hard and feeling like the attorney general misled the president’s fanbase when she went on TV in February and teased that the “client list” was sitting on her desk for review.
When the memo, released by the DOJ and FBI, triggered backlash from Trump superfans, Bongino vented that he and Patel were getting blamed by the MAGA right for what was Bondi and others’ fault, per the sources, and that their credibility with these factions was getting shredded.
Two of these sources add that tension between Patel and Bondi is not new. “Those two do not like each other,” one of the Trump administration officials adds. “It surprises me that there hasn’t been more reporting on that.”
Trump promised before the election that his administration would release the so-called Epstein Files, which MAGA conspiracy theories long hoped would reveal a host of powerful figures who were in league with Epstein. After Bondi said Epstein’s client list was on her desk in February, she arranged a stunt in which she handed out folders consisting of “Phase 1” of the Epstein Files to prominent right-wing influencers.
Many of these influencers now feel betrayed by the DOJ’s memo, which noted that after an “exhaustive” investigation, the administration found “no incriminating ‘client list,’” nor any “credible evidence … that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions.” The DOJ also released a video of Epstein’s cell the night he died. The video skips a minute before midnight, however, which led to more speculation about a potential cover-up.
As the blame games and buck-passing continue, a source close to the Trump White House says that on Sunday, Bondi, Patel, and Bongino all three internally backed the release of the now-infamous memo. Each hoped that doing so would end the intra-MAGA attacks they were getting for the investigation and the lack of conspiracy-confirming revelations.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general who previously represented Trump in criminal court, wrote Friday on X that the DOJ was unified over the memo: “I worked closely with [Patel] and [Bongino] on the joint FBI and DOJ memo regarding the Epstein Files. All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions stated in the memo. The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.”
Blanche did not dispute other details, such as the public reporting on the feud erupting, or reigniting, between some of the president’s most important lieutenants.
“The fact is, [Bongino] was for releasing the information with the video and had no problem until he got heat online,” Axios quoted a senior administration official as saying. “Bongino found the video with the missing minute. He vouched for it after a ‘thorough review,’ he said, and he thought this would end the matter. When that didn’t work, he lost his mind and ran out of D.C.”
Trump, once a friend of Epstein’s, lashed out at a reporter who asked Bondi about the missing minute during a Cabinet meeting earlier this week, questioning why anyone was still bringing up Epstein, and calling it a “desecration.” Bondi attributed the missing minute in the footage to an old system that cuts out a minute when the video is reset every night, which hardly tamped down the uproar over the memo and video.
Elon Musk, a former Trump ally and megadonor who headed his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has added fuel to the fire as his relationship with the president has deteriorated. He wrote last month that the “real reason” the Epstein Files had not been made public is because Trump “is in” them. Musk then wondered after the memo’s release on Sunday, “How can people be expected to have faith in Trump if he won’t release the Epstein files?”
Musk — who was once photographed with Epstein partner Ghislane Maxwell — has his own axe to grind with Trump as he supposedly seeks to launch a third political party, and onlookers can only speculate about what the government does or does not have on Epstein. It’s similarly unclear what led to the memo closing the case on the matter considering the administration repeatedly teased the public that they would soon expose the truth about Epstein and his clients. Regardless, it’s rankled MAGA diehards — both in the media and within the administration.
