Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, didn’t show up to work on Friday and is thinking about resigning from the agency after clashing with Attorney General Pam Bondi about the so-called Epstein files, according to reports from Axios and CNN. Earlier this year, Bondi promised to release more information about the late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his jail cell in 2019, but the Attorney General declared this week that the case was closed and there would be no more disclosures.
Bongino’s absence from work was first reported on X by far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, someone who has historically spread false claims about major news stories. But in this case, it seems Loomer has some credibility, given her connections to the fringe-weirdo wing of the modern MAGA movement. Loomer has taken credit for getting some people in the government fired for not being loyal enough to President Donald Trump.
“Source tells me Dan Bongino is taking the day off today from his job as Deputy Director of the FBI, and there’s now speculation on whether or not he will return to his job at the @FBI over his disgust with Blondi’s lack of transparency and handling of the Epstein files,” Loomer tweeted Friday morning, using a mocking nickname to refer to Bondi’s blonde hair.
Loomer went on to write that FBI director Kash Patel and Bongino were both “furious with Blondi” and her “lack of transparency.”
“Kash Patel and Dan Bongino should call for Blondi’s public resignation today to save themselves and to also push for full transparency into the Epstein files,” Loomer wrote. “This is an issue the American people care deeply about. Someone needs to be fired for this. Giving Blondi courtesy to resign is more than she deserves. Trump should just FIRE her.”
Staff at the FBI thought Bongino had quit when he didn’t show up to work on Friday, according to Axio, but he’s still employed by the agency, as far as anyone can tell. Axios cites an unnamed source close to Bongino who said that “he ain’t coming back.” And CNN reports that several unnamed sources say Bongino has been telling people he’s considering resigning.
Before they joined the Trump regime, Bongino and Patel were both insistent that the U.S. government was hiding the real story behind Epstein’s death, which happened in Aug. 2019 as he awaited trial on charges he was sex trafficking minors. But after Trump retook power and both men ascended to the highest ranks of the FBI they pulled a 180 and claimed Epstein really did kill himself.
Earlier this week, DOJ released a nearly 11-hour video from inside the jail that held Epstein, but it didn’t show a perspective close to Epstein’s actual cell. And to make things even more odd, there was footage missing from the last minute of the day when Epstein was last seen alive in 2019. Bondi became flustered during a cabinet meeting with President Trump on Tuesday when asked about the footage. She stumbled over her words when apparently explaining that the security camera footage isn’t captured on the last minute of every day. Trump became indignant that anyone was still asking about Epstein at all, perhaps because they were good friends for years.
Making matters worse for the administration, Wired has a new report looking at the metadata from the Epstein footage released by the DOJ, and it’s already causing more conspiracy theories to pop up. The footage, which had been billed as “raw,” was actually edited, probably using Adobe Premiere Pro, and it was compiled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, then exported before being uploaded to the DOJ website, according to Wired.
Even the most ardent supporters of President Trump are unhappy with the way this Epstein case has been handled. Right-wing influencers were given binders at the White House on February 27, advertised as a major release that would finally show the public how powerful people had conspired with Epstein to abuse children. But the release didn’t have new information, a humiliating experience for people who were convinced Trump was finally going to blow the lid off what they thought was a major story.
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