‘I spoke to him immediately. Dan Bongino is an excellent man,’ Trump mentioned of the deputy FBI director on July 13.
President Donald Trump mentioned he spoke to FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on July 13, indicating that the 2 stay shut regardless of reported friction over the discharge of the Jeffrey Epstein paperwork.
“I spoke to him immediately. Dan Bongino is an excellent man. I’ve recognized him a very long time,” Trump advised reporters exterior Air Drive 1. “He’s in fine condition.”
The feedback come after Axios reported that Bongino—beforehand a conservative commentator who had lengthy pressed for solutions about Epstein’s 2019 demise and operation—skipped work on July 11 due to disagreements with Legal professional Common Pam Bondi’s dealing with of the matter.
Laura Loomer, a political commentator near the president, additionally reported on Bongino’s absence from work, equally referencing disagreements between Bongino and Bondi.
Trump on July 12 advised his supporters to not proceed wanting into the circumstances surrounding the billionaire’s demise.
“What’s occurring with my ‘boys’ and, in some circumstances, ‘gals?’” Trump mentioned in a July 12 publish on social media platform Reality Social. “They’re all going after Legal professional Common Pam Bondi, who’s doing a FANTASTIC JOB! We’re on one Staff, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s taking place.
“Now we have a PERFECT Administration, THE TALK OF THE WORLD, and ‘egocentric folks’ try to harm it, throughout a man who by no means dies, Jeffrey Epstein.”
He added: “One yr in the past our Nation was DEAD, now it’s the ‘HOTTEST’ Nation wherever within the World. Let’s maintain it that method, and never waste Time and Vitality on Jeffrey Epstein, someone that no person cares about.”
Epstein’s case has been intensely scrutinized on-line for years following his 2019 demise in federal custody whereas awaiting prosecution on fees of partaking in a multiyear conspiracy to intercourse visitors minors.
The billionaire was decided to have hanged himself in his cell, however given his connections with many high-ranking officers and celebrities, many have speculated that Epstein was murdered. The character of Epstein’s operation, involving the reported sexual exploitation of over one thousand victims, lots of whom had been minors, has additionally been scrutinized.
At a July 8 Cupboard assembly, a reporter requested Bondi to handle a declare that Epstein had been some type of intelligence neighborhood asset.
“I’ve no information about that,” she mentioned. “We will get again to you on that.”
Throughout that Cupboard assembly, Bondi additionally mentioned a lacking minute from a jail surveillance tape on the evening Epstein died was a standard circumstance resulting from a routine technical artifact within the digicam system, because the video is reset each evening at 12 a.m.
Trump recommended that nothing within the Epstein recordsdata “might have harm the MAGA Motion.”
On July 7, the Division of Justice and FBI launched a memo stating that Jeffrey Epstein dedicated suicide and had no “shopper checklist,” and that the businesses wouldn’t launch any additional materials associated to the Epstein case.
“As a part of our dedication to transparency, the Division of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have carried out an exhaustive evaluate of investigative holdings regarding Jeffrey Epstein,” the businesses said within the memo.
The evaluate discovered that Epstein dedicated suicide in his cell as he was awaiting trial in August 2019. The discovering was supported by an post-mortem carried out on the time.
“The conclusion that Epstein died by suicide is additional supported by video footage from the widespread space of the Particular Housing Unit (SHU) the place Epstein was housed on the time of his demise,” the memo reads.
The evaluate discovered that Epstein didn’t maintain a listing of shoppers as a part of his intercourse trafficking actions. Moreover, there isn’t any proof that Epstein blackmailed people, based on the memo.
Nonetheless, based on the evaluate, Epstein “harmed over one thousand victims” as “every suffered distinctive trauma.”
Jackson Richman and Ryan Morgan contributed to this report.
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