US Justice Department scrambles to defend its about-face on release of Epstein files

By Sarah N. Lynch and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump's Justice Department scrambled on Tuesday to answer questions after its leadership concluded there was no evidence to support a number of long-held conspiracy theories about the death of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his alleged clientele.

Conservative influencers from Laura Loomer to Elon Musk have criticized Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel for their findings, which came months after Bondi pledged to reveal major revelations about Epstein, including "a lot of names" and "a lot of flight logs."

"It's sitting on my desk right now to review," Bondi told Fox News in February when she was asked if the Justice Department would be releasing Epstein's client list.

On Tuesday at the White House, Bondi walked that comment back, telling reporters that she was referring to the entire Epstein "file" along with other files pertaining to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. "That's what I meant by that," she said.

She added that the many of the videos in the Epstein investigative file "turned out to be child porn." This material, she added, is "never going to be released. Never going to see the light of day." 

The Justice Department's memo on Epstein, released on Monday, concluded that after reviewing more than 300 gigabytes of data, there was "no incriminating client list" nor was there any evidence that Epstein may have blackmailed prominent people.

The memo also confirmed prior findings by the FBI which concluded that Epstein died by suicide in his jail cell while awaiting trial, and not as a result of a criminal act such murder. 

A subsequent report by the Justice Department's inspector general later found that the Bureau of Prisons employees who were tasked with guarding Epstein failed to search his cell or check on him in the hours before his suicide.

Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, a former conservative podcaster, both previously made statements before working at the FBI about a so-called client list and often suggested that the government was hiding information about Epstein from the American public.

Trump defended them in a Truth Social Post on Monday amid a backlash by his MAGA base, calling them the "greatest law enforcement professionals."

He expressed annoyance when reporters asked him questions about Epstein on Tuesday at the White House during a cabinet meeting, saying, "Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein?"

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch and Andy Sullivan, additonal reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)