‘Mass Disappointment on a Religious Level’: MAGA Continues to Melt Down Over Epstein
Public speculation about AG Pam Bondi’s job security
Donald Trump’s MAGA base continues to rage against Trump and his attorney general over the failure to release promised records related to the late sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein.
The fury among key figures on the right is so intense that even mainstream political commentators are wondering whether Attorney General Pam Bondi will be allowed to stay on the job.
After long stoking conspiracy theories regarding Epstein — the wealthy sex offender who died in jail in 2019 — and a supposed “client list” of powerful figures maintained by Epstein, Bondi and others in the Trump administration now say that Epstein died by suicide and that there is no list.
The problem is that Bondi was asked, point blank, about that client list on Fox News, and she replied, “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review.”
It’s that unexplained about face that has MAGA enraged.
“And once again, we are told now all the way from the heights of the United States attorney general that the Epstein case is closed. There’s no more information on Jeffrey Epstein. ‘Why do you guys keep asking about Jeffrey Epstein?’ She says that we don’t need to hear about Jeffrey Epstein ever again,” complained Jack Posobiec, a prominent social media influencer on the right. “You know what this sounds like? I’m going to tell you exactly what this sounds like. Pam Bondi sounds like Hillary Clinton right now, saying, ‘At this point, what does it even matter?’ when she was talking about Benghazi? All right?”
Benghazi refers to a deadly attack in Libya during the Obama administration that became an earlier source of conspiracy theories on the political right.
“This is not how you treat the American people,” Posobiec added.
He was, by far, not the only MAGA figure raising their voice over this issue.
“I think the Department of Justice and the FBI has more explaining to do. This is Jeffrey Epstein. This is the most famous pedophile in modern-day history, and people are absolutely not going to accept just a memo that was written that says there is no client list,” said Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman from Georgia who usually is a stalwart ally of Trump’s.
Laura Barron-Lopez, White House correspondent for the PBS News Hour, described it as “mass disappointment, almost on a religious level” among MAGA circles.
This eruption has not been contained on the right, as mainstream journalists and political commentators have begun covering it.
CNN host Jake Tapper devoted some 11 minutes to the Epstein controversy on Tuesday evening.
And former Washington Post columnist and CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza covered it Wednesday on his YouTube channel, going so far as to question whether Bondi would be fired.
Cillizza focused on the discrepancy between telling Fox News earlier this year that the full Epstein records would be released — including the client list — but now claims that there was never any such thing.
“So were you lying then, or are you lying now?” he asked of Bondi, rhetorically. “Which is the point that a lot of conservative sort of talkers are making. And when I say ‘conservative talkers,’ I’m talking about big people in this universe. We’re talking about Steve Bannon, Megyn Kelly, Laura Loomer, Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk.
“You know, these are big players who are basically saying that the White House isn’t telling the truth here,” Cillizza added.
It will be up to Bondi to clean this up, and she has reason to worry, according to Cillizza.
Trump himself is a known associate of Epstein for decades, although Trump has maintained that he knew nothing of Epstein’s crimes.
“… You’ve got the online right up in arms over those Epstein stuff. She doesn’t have any good answers, and Trump, you know, is watching,” Cillizza said.
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