Pam Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files was problematic. Here’s how it led to her downfall

The Epstein files controversy was a stubborn presence during her tenure at the DOJ. After Pam Bondi became U.S. attorney general last year, conservative influencers, online sleuths and others who wanted the government to disclose all it knew about Jeffrey Epstein thought they might have a champion in the Department of Justice.So did Jess Michaels, one of the legions of women who have said they were sexually assaulted by the late financier and convicted sex offender with a roster of powerful friends in business, politics and beyond.“I thought, ‘Well, maybe a woman stepping into this role will finally, finally get the truth,'” Michaels recalled Thursday, after President Donald Trump announced Bondi was out of the nation’s top law enforcement job.“She had this opportunity to be a hero and to really do right by survivors of sexual violence and trafficking,” Michaels said, “and she chose not to.”The furor over the “Epstein files,” as the trove of investigative records came to be known, wasn’t the only controversy of Bondi’s tenure. But the arc — first raising expectations for a big reveal, then declaring there was nothing to see, and ultimately a forced, flawed document dump — was a stubbornly problematic storyline that ran through her time as attorney general.Bondi rejected criticism of her handling of the matter, and Trump on Thursday praised her as “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend.”Michaels and other Epstein victims watched it all with shaken trust that Bondi’s departure alone won’t likely rebuild.“This is not about a single person,” accuser Annie Farmer said Thursday. “It is about a government and judicial system that has repeatedly failed Epstein survivors.”Here’s a glance at Bondi’s part in the Epstein saga: