Trump's Epstein problem

Summary

Today, Explained: Trump's Epstein Problem – Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: Today, Explained
• Host/Author: Vox
• Description: Today, Explained is Vox's daily news explainer podcast. Hosts Sean Ramesdorf and Noel King guide listeners through the most important stories of the day.
• Episode: Trump's Epstein Problem
• Release Date: July 16, 2025
• Network: Vox Media Podcast Network

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1. Introduction to the Epstein Files

The episode delves into the ongoing controversy surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's extensive and mysterious connections, particularly focusing on the efforts to release the so-called "Epstein files." These files are purported to contain sensitive information about Epstein's associations with powerful individuals, including former President Donald Trump.

Notable Moments:

• Sean Ramesdorf opens the discussion by referencing recent cultural responses to the Epstein saga, including a parody song by Congressman Hank Johnson and a track titled "Epstein List" by rapper Tyson James.

• Sean Ramesdorf (00:00): “It was early this week when Congressman Hank Johnson, Democrat from Georgia's 4th, dropped a parody version of Dreamsicle by Jason Isbell.”

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2. Political Reactions and Maneuvering

Political actors across the spectrum are actively engaging with the Epstein files narrative, each for their strategic purposes. Republicans, particularly those aligned with Trump, are attempting to downplay the significance, while Democrats are leveraging the situation to highlight alleged Republican misdeeds.

Key Discussions:

• David Weigel emphasizes the deep and lasting impact Epstein's associations have on American politics, noting that both parties are using the issue opportunistically. He states, “This holds long and deep and serious, and it has now kind of cannonballed into our politics…” (Weigel, 02:11).

• Ellie Hoenig discusses how Epstein serves as a "key" unlocking numerous connections within various institutions, including intelligence and foreign governments (Hoenig, 02:43).

• The hosts address how the Epstein files have become a battleground for political narratives, with Republicans striving to mitigate the fallout and Democrats seeking to underscore corrupt practices within the GOP.

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3. The Role of Pam Bondi and DOJ Policies

A significant portion of the episode focuses on Pam Bondi, the Attorney General, and her controversial handling of the Epstein files. The discussion critiques Bondi's approach and questions her motivations, suggesting undue influence from Trump.

Highlights:

• Ellie Hoenig critiques Bondi's inconsistency and perceived dishonesty, pointing out her previous failed disclosures and current contradictory statements. She remarks, “Pam Bondi has just handled this whole situation in an utterly inexplicable, inconsistent, and I think, often dishonest manner.” (Hoenig, 18:43).

• The hosts explore Bondi's background, noting her 20-year prosecutorial experience and tenure as Florida's Attorney General, but highlight concerns about her election denialism and loyalty to Trump.

• The episode scrutinizes Bondi’s announcements about releasing Epstein information, revealing that initial releases contained no substantial new data, leading to public disappointment.

Notable Quote:

• Ellie Hoenig (17:28): “The first thing they should be mad at is an ancient DOJ policy that says we DOJ, we federal prosecutors, do not just turn over, make public our closed investigative files because people want to know.”

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4. Public Sentiment and Impact on Trump’s Base

The discussion transitions to the effects of the Epstein files controversy on Trump's supporters. There is an exploration of whether this issue is causing disillusionment within his base or if Trump can weather the storm as he has previous controversies.

Insights:

• David Weigel contemplates the potential for voter disappointment, noting that while some may lose faith in Trump's leadership, others remain steadfast. He states, “There's an enormous capacity for forgiveness.” (Weigel, 09:53).

• Ellie Hoenig suggests that prominent Republican figures like Dan Bongino and Pam Bondi may become scapegoats if the Epstein files reveal damaging information, further complicating Trump's political landscape.

• The hosts discuss the possibility that the Epstein files could either serve as a rallying point for Trump's supporters or lead to a broader erosion of trust in the Republican Party.

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5. Future Prospects and Potential Outcomes

Looking ahead, the episode speculates on the likelihood of the Epstein files being fully released and the possible repercussions for both political parties. There is skepticism about complete transparency, given the DOJ's longstanding policies and current political dynamics.

Predictions and Analysis:

• Ellie Hoenig expresses doubt that the full Epstein files will ever be publicly disclosed, fearing that any partial release would fail to satisfy public demand for comprehensive information.

• The hosts consider the strategic moves by Democrats to attach provisions for Epstein file declassification to legislative bills, aiming to maintain pressure on the DOJ without significant political risk.

• Sean Ramesdorf and David Weigel discuss the broader implications for future elections, particularly how the mishandling of the Epstein files might influence voter behavior in the 2028 elections.

Notable Quote:

• Ellie Hoenig (26:32): “There are two ways I see this going. I don't think they'll ever open the files and just say, here you go, everybody. I think either they will try to appease the public and the media by making some sort of partial halfway disclosure, but that's not going to satisfy anybody.”

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6. Expert Interview: Ellie Hoenig on the DOJ and Epstein Files

The latter part of the episode features an interview with Ellie Hoenig, a former federal and state prosecutor and author of the upcoming book When You Come at the Inside: DOJ's Pursuit of the President From Nixon to Trump. Hoenig provides expert insights into the DOJ's policies, Bondi's tenure, and the systemic issues hindering transparency.

Key Points from the Interview:

• Hoenig explains the DOJ's longstanding policy against releasing closed investigative files to protect individuals who haven't been charged or tried in court. She emphasizes that this principle transcends political affiliations and has been upheld by both parties.

• When questioned about Pam Bondi's sudden shift in stance regarding the Epstein files, Hoenig admits uncertainty but criticizes Bondi's inconsistent and seemingly agenda-driven approach.

• Hoenig critiques Bondi's background, highlighting her alignment with Trump and her denial of the 2020 election results, which undermines her credibility and independence as Attorney General.

• The interview underscores the complexity of the Epstein files' release, suggesting that political motivations and institutional policies are at odds, making full transparency unlikely.

Notable Quote:

• Ellie Hoenig (17:28): “The first thing they should be mad at is an ancient DOJ policy...”

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7. Conclusion and Takeaways

The episode concludes by summarizing the tangled web of political maneuvering surrounding the Epstein files. It underscores the challenges in achieving transparency due to entrenched DOJ policies and political interests. The hosts leave listeners contemplating the broader implications for political accountability and the quest for truth in high-stakes investigations.

Final Thoughts:

• Sean Ramesdorf directs listeners to further resources, including Semaphore.com for live updates and David Weigel’s coverage on the Epstein Files.

• The episode highlights the ongoing tension between public demand for transparency and institutional resistance, setting the stage for future developments in this high-profile case.

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Additional Highlights:

• Advertisements and Sponsorships: The episode includes sponsorship messages from BetterHelp, Bombas, and Vanta, promoting mental health services, socks, and compliance automation tools, respectively. These segments are seamlessly integrated and do not detract from the main content.

• Listener Engagement: The hosts occasionally engage in light-hearted banter and personal anecdotes, maintaining an engaging and relatable tone throughout the discussion.

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the key themes and discussions of the "Trump's Epstein Problem" episode of Today, Explained. It provides listeners with a clear understanding of the complex interplay between politics, legal institutions, and public demands for transparency surrounding the Jeffrey Epstein case.

Transcript

[Sean Ramsdorf]

It was early this week when Congressman Hank Johnson, Democrat from Georgia's 4th, dropped a parody version of Dreamsicle by Jason Isbell.

[David Weigel]

I still died by suicide, believe that.

[Ellie Hoenig]

And you must be blind. You've been telling us you released the.

[David Weigel]

File, but where are they?

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Awful. The Congressman was adding his voice to an ever growing chorus. Just a day before him, a rapper named Tyson James dropped a bop called Epstein List.

[Ellie Hoenig]

We want the names of every pedophile on that list. You siding with the devil when you.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

And last night, not other than speaker of the House Mike Johnson followed suit.

[David Weigel]

But not with bars. I mean the White House and the White House team are privy to facts.

[Ellie Hoenig]

That I don't know.

[David Weigel]

I mean, this isn't my lane. I haven't been involved in that. But I agree with the sentiment that we need to. We need to put it out there.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Why? Everyone, except maybe the President himself seems to agree that we should see the Epstein files on Today Explained. Support for the program today comes from BetterHelp. Work can be stressful. No way. BetterHelp says therapy could help you navigate whatever challenges the workday might bring. I was just talking to a colleague about needing better help from some work related stuff today. That's true. That's just true. But it was a joke anyway. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] explained. That's betterhelp.com explained support for this show.

[Pam Bondi]

Comes from Salesforce Today. Every team has more work to do than resources available, but digital labor is here to help. Agentforce, the powerful AI from Salesforce, provides a limitless workforce of AI agents for every department. Built into your existing workflows and your trusted customer data, AgentForce can analyze, decide and execute tasks autonomously, letting you and your employees save time and money to focus on the bigger picture, like moving your business forward. Agentforce what AI was meant to be learn [e-mail] agentforce Mr. President, do you.

[David Weigel]

Have any reaction to Today Explain being named the best news show? Wow.

[Ellie Hoenig]

I didn't know that. I just. You're telling me now for the first time, Sean.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

I'm Sean Ramsfoom and this is David Weigel, who covers politics for Semaphore, including the latest Epstein drama.

[David Weigel]

I'm hesitating on where to start because in the minds of people who are really interested in this story, it touches on everything. It is, as Steve Bannon was telling attendees of Turning Point USA Student Summit last weekend.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things, not just individuals, but also institutions and intelligence institutions, foreign governments, and who is working with him on our intelligence apparatus and in our government.

[David Weigel]

The hold this has had on the minds of a lot of Americans is long and deep and serious, and it has now kind of cannonballed into our politics as something Republicans are opportunistically trying to down pedal and Democrats are opportunistically trying to hype. But they can do all this because there are many Americans who think it's odd that this sex trafficker one, got away with he was doing for so long, two died in prison, which is quite hard to do without committing suicide in prison. They're famously very hard to do. And he, according to the government, pulled it off and that he allegedly had, according to the Trump administration, evidence on a lot of people that no one can see.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Before we go any further, I want to get this out of the way. Do we know, David, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that what's in these files would even satisfy all the people who would like to see them?

[David Weigel]

Well, no, people will not be satisfied by this, and they will not be satisfied by anything less than, I would say, the most lurid fantasies of what is in this information. For example, as soon as the DOJ memo went out over a holiday weekend without an author on it, I was seeing fake videos of Hillary Clinton entering Epstein's jail.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Wait, I am hearing breaking news.

[David Weigel]

More.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

More of the surveillance footage has been released.

[Ellie Hoenig]

I knew it.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Oh, it's always the pantsuits.

[David Weigel]

She's so stunned. That's how you know it's her. You can get a sort of fabricated satisfaction. Will you get total satisfaction that the people that you thought were behind all this all along? Probably not. This is a theme with Trump's campaign. So there are people who voted for Trump in 2016 thinking that, one, he was going to put Hillary Clinton in jail. Two, the crimes he was going to convict her of were just an unbelievable litany of murders and conspiracies and drug trafficking from Arkansas. And the fact that that didn't come out, that it wasn't provable, that didn't happen. There are people who moved on and didn't talk a lot about it. And there are people who will believe until they die that the elites cover this up.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Donald Trump makes for a bit of an awkward messenger in this mission to release the Epstein files, considering unlike, I don't know, say, like Kamala Harris, he has a long history and Established friendship with the late New York financier Jeffrey Epstein.

[David Weigel]

Yes. You've pinpointed the irony of this entire story. And I talked to some Democrats over the last few days about why they didn't make hay of his connections to Jeffrey Epstein in 2016 and 2020 and 2024. Because Democrats just decided that Trump is inoculated by his connection to his base. Generally speaking, they're happy this week to focus on Epstein because the meta narrative of Trump is that he's a political outsider who knows all these people backwards and forwards.

[Ellie Hoenig]

The elite. The elite. Why are they elite? I have a much better apartment than they do.

[David Weigel]

And the meta narrative specifically for Trump among his voters was, yeah, Donald Trump's on the record saying he knows Jeff Epstein.

[Ellie Hoenig]

I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan.

[David Weigel]

Yeah, he's on these videos and photos of him. However, the problem it ran into around the Epstein story is that Cash Patel.

[Ellie Hoenig]

And to me, that's a thing I think President Trump should run on, on day one. Roll out the black book.

[David Weigel]

Dan Bongino, listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Is a big deal.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this.

[David Weigel]

And all these people said things during the campaign as people who were not guaranteed the administration that would be proven and they weren't. And this is the best ammunition that Democrats have had in the last week is video of these guys saying they're gonna release this Epstein information once they get their hands on it. You can find this already. Conservatives and let's say other anti politics, anti establishment voters who voted for Trump, they're still, they want to be faithful in Trump and believe that he's going to do the right thing. These other guys are dispensable. You could see that the story was turning from people being disappointed in Donald Trump to being disappointed people he hired.

[Ellie Hoenig]

In 2016. We trusted the plan with Trump, but now Trump has become the deep state, the exact thing he we voted him in. It's not my place, but I do think the way that I'm seeing it played out is that Bongino will be here and Pam Bondi will be the fall guy.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

I feel like we should ring a bell every time the Democrats and the Republicans are calling for the same thing. How is it so many of them came to agree on this one obvious play for the Dems?

[David Weigel]

The downside for them in talking about this is nil. They are not worried about any of Them being connected to Jeffrey Epstein's behavior. Cause they know themselves they were not part of this. If every theory of what Epstein was doing was proven to be true, the current leadership of the Democratic Party and the rank and file electeds would not suffer at all. None of them were connected with it. So it's gotten. It was pretty easy for them to talk about. They just thought the upside was not very big. Now it's very easy for them to talk about.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Do they have any power to actually expedite the release of these files, or is it all in the doj?

[David Weigel]

No, it's in the doj. What Democrats have done in the past few days is useful opportunities in the Congress to attach an Epstein declassification amendment or language to bills. If you're not hiding anything, prove that to the American people. And if you are trying to hide something, as many of Donald Trump's MAGA supporters apparently believe, then the Congress should actually work hard to try to uncover the truth for the American people. It's convenient that they have video of JD Vance telling Theo Vaughan, seriously, we need to release the F scene list. That is an important thing. Yeah, they have that video. They could run that. Is this gonna be a top voting issue in 2028? Who knows? But it's helpful to them. They have a video of the likely next Republican nominee making this promise that he couldn't keep. And the worst case scenario for them is the administration reverses it is released, and they have a bunch of information that's damaging to Republicans and not themselves. It's a very low risk bet for them, which is the kind of bet Democrats like to make.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Trump doesn't seem to have satisfying answers for his base. For the people who are very loud and very online saying this is a betrayal, does he just hope this is gonna go away?

[David Weigel]

Lots of stuff has gone away. Trump has had a lot of problems that were going to take him out and they didn't. If I were Donald Trump, I'd be very confident that I can beef this out the way that I did the Access Hollywood tape, the way that I did indictments, that I'll get lucky and that people will move on. But the moment of maximum disappointment in Trump from the voters we're talking about was this Cabinet meeting after the DOJ memo where a reporter is asking Pam Bondi at the table, Pam Bondi, not Trump. Asking Pam Bondi to clarify some of what the memo says and why the files that she said were on her desk have not been released. And Trump intervenes and gets annoyed that the media is still asking about it.

[Pam Bondi]

Yeah, sure.

[Ellie Hoenig]

If I could I just interrupted.

[David Weigel]

Sure.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. You're asking. We have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep?

[David Weigel]

Now, the only thing I'd say is that there is always a search in the press for. Is this going to be the moment when Trump loses his base where the MAGA movement gets disappointed? That hasn't really happened for anything. And there is a enormous capacity for forgiveness. But electorally, we're looking at the midterms, we're looking at 2028. And if there are millions of voters who came into the coalition, let's say with RFK Jr. And Tulsi Gabbard, because they thought he was going to turn everything upside down. Well, what is. He's done some things that no other president did. But he's also. He was gonna end the war in Ukraine day one. And he's selling arms to NATO so that they can give them to Ukraine. He was going to end the war in Gaza. It's not over. There are ceasefires and hostages getting out, but he's not done that and he didn't do this. And so there is a. It's not showing up in donations to Republicans, but when Republicans go back to the Trump electorate and say, hey, we noticed that you didn't usually vote, but you vote in 2024, are excited again, a lot of them are going to say, nope, I don't trust anybody now. But you are seeing people who were not normal Republicans didn't usually vote in midterms. Those people have drifted away and they have a very low level of faith right now. I don't think they're going to walk away completely from Trump over this, but they're not going to be Trump hype men the way they were in October 2024.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Semaphore.com that's where you can read David Weigel, the Epstein Files live at the Department of Justice. So we are gonna head there next on Today Explained. Support for the show comes from Bombus. And today they want to talk to you about socks because it's summer and maybe it's a time when you realize that your socks are just not up to the challenges of warm weather. If I'm being real, I don't wear socks in the summer, but, you know, follow your bliss. They're talking about, like, running marathons and I don't do that either. So maybe you need socks and Bombas has some. And Nisha Chal, our colleague here at Vox, has tried the socks from Bombas.

[Ellie Hoenig]

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[David Weigel]

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[Nisha Chal]

Support for TODAY explained comes from NPR's Fresh Air hosts Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, two of the greatest of all time with some of the greatest bookings of all time. Selena Gomez, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. What do those two women have in common? Well, they both in on FRESH air. Jeremy Strong, Nikki Glaser, Billie Eilish, so much more. Recently, Sean and I saw Sinners not together, but we were talking afterwards and there was one part that we really disagreed on and I was like, am I crazy? So I said, I bet you that FRESH AIR interviewed Ryan Coogler and I bet you that they asked him about this thing that we're disagreeing on. So I went and I looked and of course, yes, they got Ryan Coogler. And it was a really, really good interview that Tonya Mosley conducted. It did not address the thing that had me and Sean at odds. But whatever, we're gonna get over it. But really, truly, it was an in depth interview with a supremely talented artist and a man who's kind of at the forefront of culture. And they dug into, you know, his childhood and what guides his vision. And he's really into vampires, which is so cool to hear. Anyway, whatever. Where was I? Tune in to FRESH AIR from NPR to hear some of the most insightful interviews anywhere. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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[David Weigel]

I'm talking about Jeff Epstein, the New York financier.

[Ellie Hoenig]

My name is Ellie Hoenig. I am a former federal and state prosecutor and I am the author of the upcoming book when youn Come at the inside DOJ's pursuit of the President From Nixon to Trump.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

And when you say you're a former prosecutor, remind us where I was a.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Fed at the Southern District of New York, which will become relevant to this conversation, as that is the office that prosecuted both Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. And then I was a state prosecutor later as well.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

So before we get to all the questions, let me just ask you a simple one. If you're someone out there who's like, release the Epstein files, all of us.

[Ellie Hoenig]

As Americans, not as Democrats, not as liberals, not as Republicans, are actually lining together and saying we all want the.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Epstein Epstein files, who should they be most mad at right now that they don't have their Epstein files?

[Ellie Hoenig]

I'm going to answer with a what rather than a who. The first thing they should be mad at is an ancient DOJ policy that says we doj, we federal prosecutors, do not just turn over, make public our closed investigative files because people want to know. People want to know a lot of things. People want to see all the closed files on the Trump cases. People want to see every piece of paper from Robert her investigation of Joe Biden. People want to see everything from the Hunter Biden cases. But there is a longstanding DOJ policy and principle that has been observed by both political parties that we don't turn these things over. We don't slag people in public who can't defend themselves, who aren't charged with anything, who don't have the ability to go to trial.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

But what's confusing people, I think, about that policy, at least right now, is one very specific moment. Not all the moments where other people said these things should be released, but the moment where the person in charge of the department that doesn't typically release this kind of information said that she would.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Yep.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Why would Pam Bondi say, it's sitting.

[Pam Bondi]

On my desk right now to review. That's been a directive by President Trump.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

If she didn't intend to look into that, did something happen?

[Ellie Hoenig]

The answer is, I have no earthly idea. But, yeah, Pam Bondi has just handled this whole situation in an utterly inexplicable, inconsistent, and I think, often dishonest manner. I mean, look, she blazes into office as Attorney General and she basically, by her actions, makes clear, I don't give a crap about that policy that I just talked about. I'm going to be turning this all over. I'm gonna break the COVID off this thing, and you all are gonna know everything.

[Pam Bondi]

I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now. You're gonna see some Epstein information being released by my office.

[Ellie Hoenig]

By the way, it goes back, if you remember, months ago, Pam Bondi had her much ballyhooed phase one disclosure. Right. She called all these conservative influencers to the White House and gave them these white thick binders labeled the Epstein files, Phase One. And you've seen the photo of people triumphantly holding up these files. Well, what happened when they opened those binders? Absolutely nothing was in them. It came out later from those influencers, among others, who I think were also disappointed, not a single new thing was.

[Pam Bondi]

Was printed or offered.

[Ellie Hoenig]

And this whole thing had been some sort of a rope, a dope. And maybe at that point, Pam Bondi was hoping, all right, let's just hope this kind of fades away. Clearly, when she said, it's sitting on.

[Pam Bondi]

My desk right now to review, it.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Wasn'T because it appears there is no client list per se. Now, that doesn't mean nobody is implicated. But this notion that there's some list, there's some piece of paper entitled Jeffrey Epstein's client list, 1, 2, 3. Seems to be pretty clearly an oversimplification. So I think that's the $64,000 question. Why this very sudden, very stark turnabout?

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Well, since we can't necessarily answer that question yet, can we maybe answer the question of, like, how Pam Bondi came to be sitting at the top of the United States Department of Justice?

[Ellie Hoenig]

So Pam Bondi on paper, looked like she was quite qualified to be the Attorney General of the United States. She had been a prosecutor for 20 years. She was the attorney general of four Florida, the state attorney general for two terms for eight years. And so if you just take that resume, I'd say, yeah, that's. That's actually quite comparable to several other ags and more Prosecutorial experience.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Perhaps more. More qualified than, say, like, I don't know.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Speaking of government bureaucrats.

[David Weigel]

Yeah.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Matt Gaetz had zero qualifications. The objections that were lodged to her related to her independence and her credibility. Primarily. Two things. One is she has a long history with Trump. She has represented him briefly during one of his impeachments. They've had political support for one another. That's not that big a deal. The bigger problem, though, is she was and in part remains a 2020 election denier. Pam, did you just say fake ballots?

[Pam Bondi]

There could be. That's the problem. If they're letting.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Do you have any?

[Pam Bondi]

I don't know.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Steve, do you have any?

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Have you heard stories of, you know.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Ballots that are fake? And if so, just tell us what you know.

[Pam Bondi]

Well, we know that ballots have been dumped. There were ballots that were found early on. We've heard that people were receiving ballots that. That were dead.

[Ellie Hoenig]

And when she was confronted about this at her confirmation hearing in 2025 about her election denial, who won the 2020 presidential election, she fell back on the old cop out line of Joe Biden.

[Pam Bondi]

Is the President of the United States.

[Ellie Hoenig]

She wouldn't disavow her prior election denialism.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

And meanwhile, there's been a lot of writing that Pam Bondi has perhaps brought the Justice Department under Donald Trump in a way that we haven't seen in decades. What do you think is the clearest evidence of that?

[Ellie Hoenig]

Oh, I think that's true, and I think it's provable. I mean, if we think back through the last many AGs. And by the way, I'd include Donald Trump's prior AGs, Bill Barr, who, by the way, my first book is a criticism of Bill Barr's tenure as Trump's ag, called Hatchet Man. But I think Bondi is different and.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Worse because even Bill Barr didn't believe the big lie.

[David Weigel]

There's been no discrepancy reported anywhere that's looked at that, and I'm still not aware of any discrepancy.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Barr had his lines. Bondi has no lines. And I'll give you something that, to me, was a really telling moment for Pam Bondi. It's kind of been almost forgotten already. In the shuffle of it all, the Signal scandal.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Hours before the US Launched these surprise attacks on the Houthi militant group in.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Yemen, the Atlantic's editor in chief, Jeffrey.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Goldberg, had all the details right in front of him.

[Ellie Hoenig]

In addition to Goldberg, the chat included National Security Advisor Michael waltz, Vice President J.D. vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of National Intelligence, Tulsa, what does Pam Bondi do? At a minimum, any modestly halfway semi independent ag would at least say, we're going to investigate, we're going to get to the bottom of this. And then who knows, maybe come back in six months and say, all right, we looked at it and while people were reckless, there was nothing quite criminal. Pam Bondi, in contrast, basically announces three.

[Pam Bondi]

Days in it was sensitive information, not classified and inadvertently released. And what we should be talking about is it was a very successful mission.

[Ellie Hoenig]

And that moment, to me showed us that she is completely at Trump's beck and call and she will never intentionally do anything contrary to Trump's political interests.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Like maybe release the Epstein files.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Well, there you go. I mean, that's one of the theories that's out there, that perhaps there's something in there that's bad for Trump.

[David Weigel]

So now by coming in and being part of the COVID up, the Trump.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Administration has become part of it. I mean, it just, you cannot see it any other way, by the way, who knows? But it's already been disclosed that Trump is in the address book, the black book. There's all sorts of phone numbers for Donald Trump and Mar A Lago in there. We're, we know they're old friends. I mean, this is a sort of forgotten moment. But Donald Trump, some magazine did a magazine feature on Jeffrey Epstein years ago before he had been convicted of any crime. And both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump are quoted in the magazine. And Trump's quote that he gave is something like, he sure does like beautiful women, even younger than I do or something. I'm not getting it word for word, but it's very close to that. So would it be shocking if there was something embarrassing for Donald Trump in those files or Bill Clinton or whoever? No.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Do you think the anger that's directed at Pam Bondi right now is misdirected? And in fact, it should be going right to the top when Donald Trump is out there clearly stating he has no desire to see these files released, not to mention has previously made no secret of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

[Ellie Hoenig]

Yeah. Let me put it this way. Either one of the president or the Attorney general has the power almost without question, to disclose whatever they want to disclose like that with a snap of the fingers. You know, at one point, I think it was Pam Bondi said, well, we'd have to do redactions and there's victims and yes, so of course you'd have to protect victims and minors and redact out pornographic materials and all that stuff. However, any one of them does have the ability to disclose whatever they deem fit tonight if they wanted to.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

You think they'll do it?

[Ellie Hoenig]

There's two ways I see this going. I don't think they'll ever open the files and just say, here you go, everybody. I think either they will try to appease the public and the media by making some sort of partial halfway disclosure, but that's not going to satisfy anybody. And Pam Bondi just now reiterated she is sticking to that DOJ FBI memo. She said that memo that says basically nothing more to see here, no cases to be brought and case closed. Basically, Pam Bondi just doubled down on that. She said that's our position and I'm not answering any other questions. So if people are wondering, are we ever going to just see a complete dump and complete satisfaction, no, I don't think that's ever going to happen.

[Sean Ramsdorf]

Eli Honig, you heard about his book and his other book, but he also writes for New York magazine. [e-mail] Our show is produced by Denise Guerra and Hadi Mwagdi, edited by Miranda Kennedy, Fact Checked by Laura Bullard and mixed by Patrick Boyd and Matthew Billy. This is TODAY explained.

[David Weigel]

Sam.