Binders, 'client list,' 'burn book': Bondi's blunders on the Epstein files
Bondi's handling of the matter sparked frustration, sources said.
President Donald Trump on Thursday ousted Pam Bondi as attorney general, bringing an end to a 14-month tenure marked by several controversies, most notably her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Trump said in a social media post that Bondi will be taking a job in the private sector, and that her longtime deputy at the Justice Department, Todd Blanche, will be the acting attorney general.
"Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year," Trump wrote in the post. Bondi, before becoming a member of his Cabinet, had spent time on his personal legal team.
But behind the scenes, sources told ABC News there was mounting frustration over Bondi's lack of success in prosecuting political foes of the president, as well as her handling of the Epstein files.
While in her first months in office she appeared near-daily on Fox News, she'd since drastically cut back her public appearances and rarely sat for engagements with the media outside of pro-Trump commentators.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, in wide-ranging Vanity Fair interviews last year, remarked that Bondi "completely whiffed" on her early comments about the Epstein files.
Here's a closer look at some of Bondi's controversies as attorney general.
Epstein binders and 'client list'
Sources have pointed to Bondi’s now-infamous February 2025 trip to the White House, during which she handed out binders to pro-Trump social media influencers containing previously-released files relating to Epstein, a convicted sex offender who died by suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.
That same month, in an interview with Fox News, Bondi said she had an Epstein "client list" sitting on her desk "right now."
But later, the Justice Department and FBI released a memo saying their review found no evidence that Epstein kept a "client list" of associates whom he blackmailed or conspired with to victimize dozens of women.
Bondi later claimed that she was referring to the Epstein case files, and not an alleged client list.
The administration's handling of the Epstein files last summer sparked fierce criticism from the president's MAGA base.
After the Justice Department said it would not release additional files on Epstein, a bipartisan duo in Congress pushed a law to force their release. That law passed with overwhelming Republican support, after President Donald Trump, whose name appeared numerous times in the files, reversed his stance and supported it.
When the Justice Department began to release millions of files earlier this year, Bondi and other officials faced criticism for failing to redact some Epstein survivors' identities.
Then last month, the House Oversight committee -- with Republican support --subpoenaed Bondi to appear for a deposition in front of the committee. She was subpoenaed to sit for testimony in mid-April.
Testy hearings, 'burn book' on Democratic lawmakers
In combative hearings on Capitol Hill, Bondi repeatedly dodged questions from Democrats on the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files and other sensitive matters.
She has also appeared to have what critics called a "burn book" with prepared attacks against Democratic members.
Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal accused Bondi of "spying" on her search history after Bondi, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in February, held a printout of a diagram with several documents from the Justice Department's unredacted Epstein files that Jayapal searched during her visit to the department.
"Surveilling us and spying on us and then using it in a 'burn book' binder against us, is absolutely unacceptable, and so the process has to change right away," Jayapal told ABC News Capitol Hill Correspondent Jay O'Brien at the time. "They cannot save our search histories. They cannot spy on us, and that's what we're demanding."
Later, several House Democrats sent a letter to Bondi demanding the Justice Department "immediately cease" tracking lawmakers’ review of the unredacted files. House Speaker Mike Johnson also expressed concerns with the Justice Department's tracking of lawmakers' search history of the unredacted files.
The Justice Department said at the time that it "logs all searches made on its systems to protect against the release of victim information." The department did not offer any explanation for why Bondi had a printout of Jayapal's search history.
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