Trump defends Bondi amid uproar over Jeffrey Epstein files
When a reporter attempted to ask Ms Bondi about disgraced financier Epstein at a White House cabinet meeting, US President Mr Trump headed off the questions and said to the journalist: 'Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years.
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'At a time like this, where we're having some of the greatest success and also tragedy with what happened in Texas, it just seems like a desecration.'
Donald Trump cut off questions over the Epstein files (AP)
The comments appeared to signal job security for Ms Bondi and amounted to a striking rebuke of members of Mr Trump's base who have called for her resignation and mocked her for what they believe to be her failed commitment to release incriminating files from the Epstein investigation.
A supposed Epstein 'client list' that Ms Bondi once intimated was sitting on her desk for review does not exist, the US justice department acknowledged in a two-page memo on Monday that riled conservative critics who had been hoping for proof of a government cover-up.
Ms Bondi has faced pressure after a first document dump that she had hyped failed to deliver revelations.
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Far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided with binders marked: 'The Epstein Files: Phase 1' and: 'Declassified' that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.
The remarks would seem to indicate Ms Bondi's job is safe (AP)
After the first release fell flat, Ms Bondi said officials were poring over a 'truckload' of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.
But after a months-long review of evidence in the government's possession, the Justice Department said in Monday's memo that no 'further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted'.
The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and 'only a fraction' of it 'would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial'.
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The only evidence disclosed as part of the memo was a video meant to definitively prove that the wealthy financier had taken his own life in jail in 2019, but even that disclosure did little to quieten conspiracy theorists who believe he was killed.
Mr Trump spoke during a cabinet meeting (AP)
The department's client list revelation was especially dismaying for conservative influencers and online sleuths given that Ms Bondi, in a Fox News interview in February, had intimated that such a document was 'sitting on my desk' for review.
Ms Bondi insisted on Tuesday that she had been referring to the Epstein case file as being on her desk, as opposed to a specific client list.
'That's what I meant by that,' she said.
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She also defended her earlier public statements suggesting that the FBI was reviewing 'tens of thousands' of videos of Epstein with 'children or child porn'.
The Associated Press published a story last week about the unanswered questions surrounding those videos and the justice department's refusal to provide clarity.
The memo from Monday did not suggest that the videos in the US government's possession depicted Epstein with children, instead referring to images of Epstein as well as more than 10,000 'downloaded videos and images of illegal child sex abuse material and other pornography'.
'They turned out to be child porn downloaded by that disgusting Jeffrey Epstein,' Ms Bondi said.
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But she did not explain why the department could not release other files from the 'truckload' of evidence she said was delivered to the agency months ago.
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