Several senior officials in President Donald Trump's administration are now finding themselves in the crosshairs of Trump's MAGA base, who are upset with their inability to follow through on promises to get to the bottom of unproven conspiracy theories.
According to a Sunday report in the New York Times, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino have all experienced MAGA's wrath on multiple occasions since they were confirmed to their positions. Bondi was lambasted for giving far-right, pro-Trump activists binders full of material that was teased as new revelations about the late convicted child predator Jeffrey Epstein, only to disappoint them once it was found that there was no new information contained in those binders.
Similarly, Bongino acknowledged that Epstein did indeed take his own life in a prison cell while awaiting trial in 2019 (though a DOJ Office of the Inspector General report issued in 2023 found that there were numerous failures by staff to prevent his death by suicide). This deflated conspiracy theorists who had argued — as Trump himself has insinuated — that Epstein was murdered by someone connected to his client base of rich and powerful people.
As for Patel, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused him of "gaslighting" the American public for failing to deliver promised results about the Epstein case during a recent interview with podcaster Joe Rogan. Jones asserted that the FBI director was "committing political suicide" by maintaining that Epstein alone was responsible for his own death.
The Times reported that the MAGA faithful have been more vocal in their condemnations of Bondi, Bongino and Patel in response to their handling of the Epstein case. Trump supporter Suzzanne Monk – who has repeatedly bemoaned the treatment of participants in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol — said that Trump's base is divided between "Camp Be Patient" and "Camp Demand Results," and that she is firmly on the side of the latter.
Patel and Bongino have since announced new investigations into three high-profile cases: The discovery of cocaine at the White House in 2023, the leaking of the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Supreme Court opinion that overturned Roe v. Wade and the discovery of pipe bombs left outside of the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee buildings on January 6. But former Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson criticized those new investigations as a distraction.
"Dan Bongino & Kash Patel know they destroyed their credibility by claiming that ‘Jeffrey Epstein killed himself’ so now they’re trying to offer up three investigations you don’t care about to misdirect you from the Epstein files you do care about," Robinson wrote. "Sad!"
Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).
