Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Its incompetence extends to current officials and nominees.
The bitter blame game over the handling of the investigation into the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein erupted in public on Friday between Attorney General Pam Bondi and the senior leadership of the F.B.I., particularly the bureau’s deputy director, Dan Bongino.
Ms. Bondi and her allies believe that Mr. Bongino, who parlayed a he-man image and promotion of conspiracies into a top law enforcement job, planted stories in the conservative news media blaming Ms. Bondi for the backlash after an announcement earlier this week that the Epstein case would be closed, according to officials close to the situation. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss conversations intended to be private.
It escalated into an angry face-to-face confrontation at the White House on Wednesday, when an irate Ms. Bondi accused Mr. Bongino of leaking information to the news media in the presence of the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, the White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and one of her deputies, Taylor Budowich. Mr. Bongino denied it, they said.
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On Friday, a high-profile Bongino booster — the far-right influencer and conspiracist Laura Loomer — claimed, in two dramatic social media posts, that the bureau’s deputy director had taken Friday off to collect his thoughts, and was “now seriously thinking about RESIGNING” over Ms. Bondi’s actions in the Epstein case.
A person close to Mr. Bongino did not dispute her characterization, describing him as very angry and considering a range of options, including quitting.
It would not be the first time Mr. Bongino, who has struggled to retain credibility with the right-wing base while overseeing the bureau’s day-to-day-operations, has suggested the pressures of the job were getting to him: “People ask all the time, ‘Do you like it?’ No. I don’t,” he told Fox News last month.
Former White House aide Steve Bannon suggested Friday that the GOP could lose dozens of House seats in the 2026 midterms over the Trump administration’s handling of files related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
“You’re going to lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement. If we lose 10 percent of the MAGA movement right now, we ain’t gonna … we’re gonna lose 40 seats in ’26,” he told a live audience during his “War Room” podcast. “We’re gonna lose the president.”
