A Fox News panel suggested Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino stands little chance of surviving his ultimatum about working alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi amid mounting blowback over the agency’s handling of the Epstein files.
Bongino reportedly failed to show up to work on Friday and has threatened to resign after sparring with Bondi in a tense White House exchange. The row comes after a leaked memo revealed the FBI and DOJ have essentially closed their investigation on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, who died by suicide while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges in 2019.
“It’s a lot easier to be a commentator, a pundit, a bomb thrower on the outside,” network radio analyst Josh Kraushaer said of Bongino, who has “disappointed a lot of those grassroots followers in saying there’s nothing to see here.”
A former podcaster and long-time proponent of conspiracy theories surrounding Epstein’s death, Bongino is reported to have had a go at Bondi at the White House on Wednesday for overpromising, then underdelivering on the DOJ’s inquiries into Epstein.
Kraushaer said it is highly unlikely Bondi will be pushed out given that she ranks above him and that “she probably right now still has more standing in the White House than Bongino.”
The bust-up comes as the DOJ and the FBI face heavy fire from President Donald Trump’s supporters over a leaked memo finding that the deceased sex trafficker’s long-rumoured “client list” doesn’t exist despite Bondi having told Fox News in February the roster was simply “sitting on my desk” awaiting review.
Fellow pundit Philip Wegman was of the same mind. “If you take a step back, the MAGA base took this seriously, and they saw the Epstein case as a litmus test for whether or not the powerful were going to be held accountable,” he said.
“[The White House] promised transparency,” he added. “They’ve delivered it elsewhere, but this is a bit different.”
As far-right influencers like Laura Loomer continue to call for Bondi to be canned over the Epstein files, Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked GOP supporters at a Florida rally Friday whether they were satisfied by the DOJ’s latest findings, sparking boos and jeers from the crowd.
