BURSTAttorney General Pam Bondi sidestepped questions and calls for her to resign over the Justice Department's (DOJ) handling of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein's files on Tuesday, instead focusing on the Trump administration's goals to fight the fentanyl drug crisis.
“I’m going to be here for as long as the president wants me here,” Bondi told reporters during an event Tuesday evening. “And I believe he’s made that crystal clear."
One reporter asked the attorney general to explain discrepancies between the joint DOJ-FBI memo issued last week — which concluded that Epstein died by suicide and that a "client list" did not exist — and comments she made in February suggesting such a list was on her desk waiting for review.
Bondi brushed off the question, seeking to turn the conversation back to the war on drugs.
“This today is about fentanyl overdoses throughout our country and people who have lost loved ones to fentanyl,” she said. “That’s the message that we’re here to send today. I’m not going to talk about Epstein.”
In recent days some Republicans and Democrats alike have pressured the Trump administration to release the Epstein files in full or offer more of an explanation. Some conservative commentators have gone as far as to ask Bondi to resign over the controversy.
The White House and Trump have stuck behind Bondi amid the turmoil, seeking to clarify her previous comments.
“She was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week. “That’s what the attorney general was referring to, and I’ll let her speak for that.”
Amid pushback over word choice, Trump too has vehemently defended his attorney general's work ethic — especially as fissures emerge among his "Make America Great Again" base over the controversy.
“They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!” Trump wrote over the weekend. “We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening."
On Tuesday, the president said Bondi should release “whatever she thinks is credible.”
He also pressed his supporters to move on, calling the Epstein drama "boring."
“I don’t understand why the Jeffrey Epstein case would be of interest to anybody. It’s pretty boring stuff. It’s sordid, but it’s boring,” Trump told reporters. “And I don’t understand why it keeps going. I think really only pretty bad people, including fake news, want to keep something like that going.”
Bondi lauded the president for his support throughout public criticism and reaffirmed her commitment to the administration.
“We’re going to fight to keep America safe again and we’re fighting together as a team,” she said Tuesday.