Last Updated on March 17, 2025
Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley promised NATIONAL FILE that he will lean on Attorney General Pam Bondi to release the long-awaited government files on accused human trafficker and blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein. Will Hawley keep his word? Will Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel finally satisfy the demands of the American people and release the files?
Hawley recently gave a thumbs-up and responded to me in the affirmative when I asked him if he could lean on Pam Bondi to release the Epstein files.
The Trump administration’s first supposed release of Epstein documents was a disaster, with heavily-redacted pages given out in prop binders to various influencers who pretended that somehow a big disclosure was happening. In reality, that release revealed nothing new. The American people demand to know who Epstein was working for.
Senator Ted Cruz, meanwhile, said that he is confident Bondi will release the files. Hopefully his confidence will prove accurate.
Republican Florida congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna told NATIONAL FILE that she recently pressured the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to finally release the files on accused human trafficker and blackmailer Jeffrey Epstein. Will attorney general Pam Bondi actually listen?
“I actually bugged the DOJ today about that, and the FBI, so I don’t speak on behalf of the DOJ or the FBI but I am hearing that they are reviewing documents,” Anna Paulina Luna said.
“We are pushing for this release. No one is above the law, period. The fact that no one is sitting in jail or has been charged for what Jeffrey Epstein did is pretty abhorrent, so I look forward to the AG bringing charges, investigating, and I would say that if the AG does this she’ll be one of the best AG’s in U.S. history. If she doesn’t then it is what it is,” Luna said.
For her part, Pam Bondi is shifting the scrutiny to Kash Patel, the director of the FBI, as America waits for the potential release of actual Epstein answers.
I reported all the way back on March 1: Pressure builds on Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI director Kash Patel to release a full batch of Jeffrey Epstein documents following the White House’s disastrous event this week in which some handpicked “influencers” held up binders containing heavily-redacted Epstein files for a widely-ballyhooed photo op. Bondi demanded that the FBI turn over all Epstein documents to her office by 8 AM on Friday morning. Now, that deadline has come and gone, and the American people still do not have the information that they deserve about Epstein, the convicted pedophile and alleged human-trafficking blackmailer who allegedly committed suicide while incarcerated.
The MAGA base is known to hold politicians accountable (even members of President Donald Trump’s administration) if they do not do what the people want. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel are certainly not immune to scathing criticism from the MAGA base, especially considering that Bondi was Trump’s second choice to serve as attorney general after Matt Gaetz. Many people are rightly interested in Epstein’s ties to intelligence, since Epstein has been accused of working for Israel.
“This is not what we or the American people asked for. Get us the information we asked for instead of leaking old info to press,” stated Anna Paulina Luna, the Florida congresswoman who is heading the Republican transparency effort in the U.S. House of Representatives. But Luna says that she does not have declassification power when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein documents. So the MAGA scrutiny is aimed squarely at Bondi and Patel.
Pam Bondi is clearly feeling the heat from President Trump’s MAGA base. On Thursday, she shifted blame for the apparent cover-up to the FBI. Bondi wrote a letter to FBI director Kash Patel demanding that the FBI turn over all Epstein files to her attorney general’s office by 8 AM Friday morning.
“Before you came into office, I requested the full and complete files related to Jeffrey Epstein. In response to this request, I received approximately 200 pages of documents, which consisted primarily of flight logs, Epstein’s list of contacts, and a list of victims’ names and phone numbers,” Bondi wrote in her letter to Patel.
“I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents. Late yesterday; I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files. When you and I spoke yesterday, you were just as surprised as I was to learn this new information,” Bondi wrote.
“By 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, February 28, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office, including all records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients, regardless :of how such information was obtained. There will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access. The Department of Justice will ensure that any public disclosure of these files will be done in a manner to protect the privacy of victims and in accordance with law, as I have done my entire career as a prosecutor,” Bondi wrote.
“I am also directing you to conduct an immediate investigation into why my order to the FBI was not followed. You will deliver to me a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within 14 days,” Bondi wrote.
But the deadline has long passed, and as of press time the American people are still being left out in the cold.
