Trump Downplays MAGA Fury Over Epstein Files and Goes to Bat for ‘Phenomenal’ AG Pam Bondi
President Donald Trump downplayed the anger of his base over his administration’s failure to release all federal files pertaining to Jeffrey Epstein during a recent interview with Sharyl Attkisson.
Attorney General Pam Bondi faced harsh criticism from other members of Trump’s coalition last month when she released a round of documents that they deemed a “nothingburger.”
Attkisson asked Trump about his promises to declassify various documents in an episode of her show, Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson released on Sunday:
ATTKISSON: There’s lot of intrigue surrounding the release of the Epstein files, Martin Luther King files, John F. Kennedy files. Some current and former FBI agents are saying, some of them telling me, that they feel the FBI establishment came out ahead in the standoff sort of with the New York FBI field office over releasing the records and your Attorney General Pam Bondi demanding them, but not getting all that she wanted. Is that process still on track? I think that’s one of the most often questions I’ve been asked the last couple of days. to release these records on Epstein, MLK, and JFK.
TRUMP: Well, Pam Bondi has done a phenomenal job in every respect, and there could have been some hold back, I haven’t heard too much about it, but the bottom line is the records are getting out. The Kennedy records are getting out — those are the ones they really wanted to see the most were the Kennedys. And during my administration, as you know, I released a lot of them. But then a lot of people started coming in, people that I respected, people that worked for the administration, asked me not to release the rest. And I respected that. They gave me certain reasons, but I respected that. And I did say, I must tell you, I said that probably wished I did release the whole thing because I have no idea what’s in there. But since then they found, and we found 2,000 more documents on Kennedy. And the one they want most is Kennedy and it’s gonna be released. It’s moving along, and it’s moving along pretty rapidly. It doesn’t go that rapidly-
ATTKISSON: Weeks-, weeks maybe? Longer?
TRUMP: I would say weeks, yeah — I would say weeks.
The White House was reportedly blindsided by Bondi’s decision to release the underwhelming first set of files by handing out binders to right-wing influencers.
