[EXTERNAL EMAIL] - FBI Daily News Briefing - July 9, 2025

U.S. Justice Department Scrambles to Defend Its About-Face on Release of Epstein Files Reuters (07/08, Lynch, Sullivan) reported that President 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 AG Bondi and Director Patel for their findings, which came months after AG 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," AG 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, AG 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 article added that the Justice Department's memo, 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 as 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. The article highlighted that Director Patel and Deputy Director Bongino 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?" Forbes (07/08, Dorn) reported that Deputy Director Bongino told his podcast audience in 2023: "Listen, that Jeffrey Epstein story is a big deal, please do not let that story go. Keep your eye on this" and questioned "what the hell are they hiding with Jeffrey Epstein?" without specifying who "they" are. Deputy Director Bongino also proliferated the conspiracy theory that Epstein is "an intelligence asset for people in the Middle East," during a 2023 appearance on right-wing podcaster Tim Pool's "Timcast IRL," alleging an unnamed Fox reporter shared the information with him. According to the article, Director Patel suggested to right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson in December 2023 Congress was blocking the purported list "because of who's on that list," telling Johnson "you don't think that Bill Gates is lobbying Congress night and day to prevent the disclosure of that list?" while deriding House Republicans for allegedly failing to release the list: "put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are." In November, days before Trump was elected, Director Patel again appeared on the Benny Johnson podcast and said Trump is going to "maybe" release the "Epstein list." The article highlighted that President of the conservative Judicial Watch movement Tom Fitton told Steve Bannon on Monday, "I don't even think the Biden administration would have written anything like this. I just don't think they could have thought they could get away with it. And I gotta wonder what is going on at the leadership of the Justice Department and the FBI." Additional reporting on the story was provided by ABC News (07/08, Steakin), Axios (07/08, Scribner), BBC (07/08, Debusmann Jr.), Daily Beast (07/08, Palmer), Fox News (07/08, Colton), The Hill (07/08, Waldvogel), NBC News (07/08, Collier, O'Donnell, et al.), Newsweek (07/08, Mordowanec), New York Post (07/08, Kaplan), NewsNation (07/08, Djordjevic), New York Times (07/08, Thrush, Thompson), Politico (07/08, Svirnovskiy), USA Today (07/08, Ramaswamy), Wall Street Journal (07/08, Gurman), Washington Examiner (07/08, Lim), Washington Post (07/08, Paybarah), and the Washington Times (07/08, Mordock).