The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Amelia Cramer
On Wednesday, Dec. 24, the U.S. Department of Justice posted on social media that it might take “a few more weeks” to release the Epstein files after announcing that the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had just “uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.”
This is not a legitimate excuse, as it might appear to some. Rather, it is an admission by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that she has knowingly violated the law.
The FBI and SDNY are not, as is implied in the social media post, separate entities outside the control of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General. On the contrary, the Attorney General is the head of the Department of Justice, an agency that includes within it both the FBI and the SDNY. Attorney General Bondi has direct authority over both the FBI and SDNY.
Prosecutors from the Justice Department’s SDNY office were conducting an active investigation into co-conspirators of sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell until January 2025, when they were ordered to transfer all their files to Justice Department headquarters. (At that point, the Justice Department’s investigation into co-conspirators inexplicably ceased, according to reports provided to the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives by attorneys representing survivors of Epstein’s abuse.) Attorney General Bondi obviously knew almost a year ago that her SDNY office held voluminous records relating to Epstein. Her social media post implying otherwise is disingenuous.
Attorney General Bondi was ordered by legislation, duly adopted by the Congress and signed by the President, to disclose by Dec. 19, 2025, all Department of Justice files relating to Jeffrey Epstein, including records held by the FBI and SDNY, as well as records held by prosecutors in other districts and by DOJ’s headquarters office. Specifically, the Epstein Files Transparency Act (H.R. 4405), which was passed by an overwhelming majority in Congress and signed into law by President Trump on Nov. 19, 2025, mandates that the Attorney General publish within 30 days all Epstein records, including flight logs and communications, and grand jury testimony (redacting victims’ names and contact information).
The Attorney General, in her department’s social media post, flatly admits her failure to promptly and thoroughly gather all her agency’s files related to Epstein and to produce those files to the American public by the Dec. 19 deadline set forth in the legislation.
Sadly, we are now living in a country in which our Attorney General, who is assigned to be the top law enforcement officer and who swore an oath on the Bible to “well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office” has instead defied that oath, breached those duties, and broken the law. Her attempted excuse is pathetic.
In order to restore the rule of law to this nation, the House of Representatives should promptly impeach Attorney General Bondi, and the Senate should try her, convict her, and remove her from office. Additionally, the Florida Bar, which issued her license to practice law, should investigate Bondi and impose appropriate sanctions.
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