Epstein Data Wiki

Pam Bondi

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tagsperson, politician, florida, us-attorney-general, department-of-justice, epstein-files-release
aliasesPamela Bondi, Pamela Jo Bondi, Attorney General Bondi, AG Bondi

20 min read

BornNovember 17, 1965, Tampa, Florida1
OfficesAttorney General of Florida, January 4, 2011 to January 8, 2019; Attorney General of the United States from February 202512
Contact with EpsteinNo document cited on this page records any contact between Bondi and Jeffrey Epstein, and none was returned by the search described in the lede
February 27, 2025Announced the first release of Epstein files and wrote to the FBI Director demanding “the full and complete Epstein files” by the next morning — both documented acts34
July 2025The Department of Justice and the FBI issued a joint memorandum finding no “client list” and no basis for further disclosure; press reports summarised in FBI briefings described it as contradicting her earlier statements, and the White House and the Department said she had been referring to the whole file56
August 11, 2025The court denied the Department’s motion to unseal the Maxwell grand jury materials; the motion had been filed by the Deputy Attorney General78
November 2025Directed the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan to investigate Epstein’s ties to several of the President’s political opponents, as reported by the Associated Press and summarised in an FBI briefing9

Pamela Jo Bondi (born November 17, 1965) is an American lawyer and Republican politician who was Attorney General of Florida from January 4, 2011 to January 8, 2019 and has been Attorney General of the United States since February 2025.12 The documents cited on this page are of two kinds. A few are primary: her own February 27, 2025 letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, letters written to her that the Justice Department’s correspondence system logged, an FBI records-search form, and federal court filings recording what the Department did with the Epstein and Maxwell grand jury materials. Most are Federal Bureau of Investigation daily news briefings and New York Field Office situation reports that summarise press coverage of her handling of the files; a press report summarised inside an internal government briefing is a report of a report, and is described that way throughout this page. A search of the released files under the name variants “Pam Bondi,” “Pamela Bondi,” “Pamela Jo Bondi,” “Attorney General Bondi,” “General Bondi” and the bare surname “Bondi” returned no document recording any contact between Bondi and Epstein, and none placing her office in the Epstein matter during her Florida tenure; the surname alone also returns unrelated matches, chiefly a shipping-form field and a Sydney place name.

Before February 2025

Bondi was an assistant state attorney in Hillsborough County, Florida, from 1994 to 2009, and was elected Attorney General of Florida in 2010, taking office on January 4, 2011.1 Her Florida tenure ran from after Epstein’s 2007–2008 federal non-prosecution agreement until January 2019, and so overlapped the Crime Victims’ Rights Act litigation brought on behalf of Epstein’s victims in the Southern District of Florida.1 No document cited on this page records any act by Bondi or by the Florida Attorney General’s office in the Epstein matter during that period, and the search described above returned none. Two Florida appellate decisions in the release carry her name in the counsel block as Attorney General. One, Dolan v. State, is cited authority in an unrelated criminal appeal; the other, Andrews v. State, is a legal-database printout, and nothing in the release shows it was ever cited. Neither concerns Epstein.10

Trump announced his intention to nominate Bondi as Attorney General in November 2024.1 The Senate confirmed her on the evening of February 4, 2025 by 54 votes to 46.2 An FBI daily news briefing of February 5, 2025 carried an Associated Press account of the vote, which described her as “a former Florida attorney general and corporate lobbyist” expected “to oversee a radical reshaping of the department.”11 That characterisation is the news agency’s, summarised in the briefing, not a finding of the Bureau.

February 2025: the first release and the letter to the FBI Director

On February 27, 2025 the Justice Department announced what it called the first phase of a release of declassified Epstein files. The press release quoted Bondi: “This Department of Justice is following through on President Trump’s commitment to transparency and lifting the veil on the disgusting actions of Jeffrey Epstein and his co-conspirators,” and “The first phase of files released today sheds light on Epstein’s extensive network and begins to provide the public with long overdue accountability.”3 Judge Paul A. Engelmayer’s opinion of August 11, 2025 sets out the press release and the letter it quoted.5

The letter itself is in the release, on Office of the Attorney General letterhead and over Bondi’s signature.4 Writing to Director Patel the same day, she recorded that she had asked for the full Epstein files before he took office and had received “approximately 200 pages of documents, which consisted primarily of flight logs, Epstein’s list of contacts, and a list of victims’ names and phone numbers”; that she had been “repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents”; and that she had learned the previous day, from a source, that the FBI’s New York Field Office held thousands of pages relating to the investigation and indictment of Epstein. She directed that “[b]y 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, February 28, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office,” with “no withholdings or limitations,” and undertook that any public disclosure would “protect the privacy of victims.” She further directed Patel to investigate why her earlier order had not been followed and to deliver “a comprehensive report of your findings and proposed personnel action within 14 days.”4 No such report appears among the documents cited on this page; a search of the release for the phrases quoted from that direction returned only the two copies of the letter itself.

A New York Post article of the same afternoon, captured in the release, reported the letter and quoted from it.12 A day earlier, an FBI briefing had summarised a Politico report that Bondi was under pressure from lawmakers of both parties to release a purported Epstein “client list,” and that some of them suggested delay would mean protecting the people on it.13 That is a summary of a press report of what lawmakers said; the briefing records no response from Bondi to it.

Counsel for Epstein’s victims write to the Attorney General

On February 28, 2025, the day after the release, Paul G. Cassell, Bradley J. Edwards and Brittany Henderson wrote to Bondi as “[c]ounsel for many Jeffrey Epstein sexual assault victims.” Their letter supported the disclosure project and asked to work with her on redactions, warning that the files would contain victims’ names and identifying details and that “[i]f the redaction process is done by people without full knowledge of the details of the case, it is likely that victims’ names or identifying information will mistakenly be made public.”14 The letter quotes her February 27 letter to Patel back to her, including its undertaking to protect victims’ privacy.14 Cassell sent it to the Office for Victims of Crime on March 2 because, he wrote, he had not been able to find a working email address for the Attorney General; the Office for Victims of Crime forwarded it on March 4 as something on which it could not act, and it was routed to the Justice Department’s Executive Secretariat.14 The Executive Secretariat logged it as a controlled correspondence work package requiring a component signature.15 The copy of the tracking sheet cited here shows that work package still open at the action stage; no reply from the Attorney General or her office appears among the documents cited on this page.15

March 2025: the “truckload”

An FBI daily news briefing of March 4, 2025 summarised a Fox News report of the previous day that Bondi, speaking to the host Sean Hannity, had confirmed that a “truckload” of Epstein files were delivered by the FBI after she gave the agency a deadline. The summary quoted her: “I gave the FBI a deadline of Friday at 8 a.m. to get us everything… And a source had told me where the documents were being kept, Southern District of New York, shock. So we got them all by Friday at 8 a.m.”; “Thousands of pages of documents. I have the FBI going through them…and Director Patel is going to get us a detailed report as to why the FBI withheld all of those documents.”16 The same briefing summarised the Fox News article’s own account that the release “drew criticism across the country,” disappointing those who had expected a client list or significant new information, and separately summarised a CNN report that the letter to Patel was the one part of the release that had drawn support.16 The following day’s briefing carried a New York Post account in which she said the material would be reviewed “as fast as we can, but go through it very cautiously to protect all the victims of Epstein because there are a lot of victims.”17 On March 14 she repeated the “truckload” description on Fox Business without giving a timetable, as reported by Forbes and summarised in the briefing of March 17.18

A Washington Examiner opinion column carried in the same March 4 briefing wrote that Bondi had called on Patel to release the entirety of the files and that “it is likely not AG Bondi or Director Patel’s fault that there were delays in releasing the files.”19 That is a columnist’s characterisation summarised in a government briefing, and it is the only place in the briefing where the statement appears.

July 2025: the joint memorandum

In early July 2025 the Justice Department and the FBI issued an unsigned joint memorandum on Epstein. Judge Engelmayer’s opinion dates it July 6 and quotes it at length; a Senate Judiciary Committee letter to Bondi dates it July 7.520 The memorandum described an “exhaustive review of investigative holdings,” including “more than 300 gigabytes of data and physical evidence,” and stated that “[t]his systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list,’” that no credible evidence of blackmail was found, that no evidence was uncovered that “could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties,” and that “no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.”5 The court recorded that “[e]nsuing news accounts reported public and congressional dissatisfaction” with it.5

An FBI briefing of July 8 summarised an Associated Press report that the Department had walked back a claim Bondi had promoted, together with the responses given at the time. According to that summary, Bondi had suggested a client list existed and was being reviewed; the White House press secretary said that “she was saying the entirety of all of the paperwork, all of the paper in relation to Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes,” and a Department spokesman said she had been referring to the Epstein files more broadly, meaning the flight manifests and address book in the February release.6 The briefing records no statement from Bondi herself on that point; the responses summarised in it are the White House’s and the Department’s, not hers.6 The same summary reproduced a February remark attributed to her, that the list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”6

A briefing of July 2 had earlier summarised an Associated Press report that Bondi told reporters at the White House that the FBI was reviewing “tens of thousands of videos” of Epstein “with children or child porn,” and that lawyers and law-enforcement officials in the Epstein and Maxwell cases told the agency they had not seen and did not know of such a trove.21 A briefing of July 10 summarised a New York Times report that “Trump supporters on the far right have lashed out at Attorney General Bondi and FBI brass for closing the investigation into the death” of Epstein.22 A briefing of July 15 summarised a Washington Post report in which a former FBI counterterrorism agent said of the review that “[a]t one point, nearly the entire New York field office, certainly on the criminal side, had to be focused on this, because it was the attorney general’s priority,” and called it “performative.”23 That is one former official’s assessment, reported by a newspaper and summarised in a briefing; no response from Bondi to it appears in the documents cited on this page.

The grand jury unsealing motions

On July 18, 2025 the Deputy Attorney General moved in the Southern District of New York to unseal the grand jury transcripts in the Maxwell prosecution, and filed a similar motion the same day in the Epstein case. The motion stated that the Department “continue[s] to adhere to the conclusions reached in the Memorandum” but that “transparency to the American public is of the utmost importance to this Administration.”7 The court’s opinion records that on July 19 the White House press secretary announced that the President had directed the Attorney General “to move forward with requesting grand juries related to the Epstein files unseal their relevant documents.”7 A New York Field Office situation report of July 18 summarised a New York Times report of the previous day that the President had authorised Bondi to seek the release of the grand jury testimony.24 The motions were filed by the Deputy Attorney General, not by Bondi personally.7

On August 11, 2025 Judge Engelmayer denied the Maxwell motion, holding that granting it “would bloat the ‘special circumstances’ doctrine” governing grand jury secrecy.8 A situation report of November 24, 2025 summarised a Politico report that the Department had renewed the effort after the Epstein Files Transparency Act was signed, arguing that the new law superseded ordinary grand jury secrecy rules, and a Bloomberg report that FBI agents had spent months reviewing and redacting “over 300 gigabytes” of Epstein material before sending processed records to Bondi.25

Congressional and oversight response

Senate Judiciary Committee, July 18, 2025. The committee’s ranking member, Richard J. Durbin, wrote to Bondi that the July memorandum’s first finding “directly contradicts public statements you have repeatedly made,” and asked thirteen questions with a deadline of August 1. Among them: whether she had personally reviewed all the Epstein files; why she had said on February 21 that a client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” and if it was not a client list, what was; when and how a whistleblower had disclosed the existence of additional records; why the July memorandum was unsigned; and the names of the Department ethics officials she had consulted about a potential conflict of interest in the matter, though the letter does not say what conflict it means.20 The letter also alleged, on information the senator said his office had received, that she had pressured the FBI to put about 1,000 Information Management Division personnel on 24-hour shifts through the second half of March to review roughly 100,000 Epstein-related records, supplemented by New York Field Office staff, and that personnel were instructed to “flag” any record mentioning the President.20 Those are the senator’s allegations; no answer from Bondi to any of them appears among the documents cited on this page.

The Justice Department’s Executive Secretariat logged the letter as congressional controlled correspondence.26 It was referred onward to the FBI a week later marked “FOR INFORMATION ONLY,” with the instruction that “IT DOES NOT REQUIRE ANY FBI ACTION,” and forwarded inside the New York Field Office on July 29 as “FYSA only.”27

House Oversight Committee, August 5, 2025. A New York Field Office situation report summarised a CBS News report that the committee had issued subpoenas to former attorneys general and FBI directors for testimony about the Epstein case, and had subpoenaed Bondi for related documents.28

Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, October 7, 2025. A briefing of October 8 summarised a New York Post account of Bondi’s appearance before the committee, at which she defended her July decision not to release further Epstein files and criticised several senators, and a Daily Beast account that she declined to answer questions on a separate matter, directing lawmakers to Director Patel.29 The FBI briefing’s own heading for that item was “AG Bondi Speaks at Contentious Senate Hearing”; that heading is the briefing’s, not the newspaper’s.29

Federal records request. An FBI records-search form dated September 3, 2025 tasked a search of Bureau email under the terms “Epstein” AND “Pam” and “Epstein” AND “Bondi” for the period January 1 to March 17, 2025, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request whose stated subject was “Communications regarding Attorney General Bondi’s Epstein file request.”30 The form records the tasking; no results appear among the documents cited on this page.

November 2025

An FBI briefing of November 17, 2025 summarised an Associated Press report that Bondi had ordered the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Jay Clayton, to investigate Epstein’s ties to several of the President’s political opponents after the President publicly demanded it, and that the same July memorandum had said no evidence had been found that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties. The summary records the President’s own explanation, “I’m the chief law enforcement officer of the country. I’m allowed to do it”, and notes that none of the individuals named had been accused of sexual misconduct by Epstein’s victims; the assessment that the sequence marked an erosion of the Department’s independence is the news agency’s.9 The briefing records no separate statement from Bondi about the direction beyond the order itself.

A briefing of November 21, 2025 summarised a report in The Hill that Republican senators had warned her not to delay the release required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, that lawmakers of both parties were concerned the Department might withhold files by citing ongoing investigations, and that she had pledged to “follow the law” and release additional files within thirty days.31 A pledge to release is not a release; what the Department produced under the Act is outside the documents cited on this page.

Coverage

  • Associated Press, February 4, July 1 and 7, and November 14, 2025, as summarised in FBI daily news briefings.116219
  • New York Post, February 27 and March 4 and October 7, 2025, the first captured in full in the release and the others as summarised in FBI daily news briefings.121729
  • Fox News, March 3, 2025, and Forbes, March 14, 2025, as summarised in FBI daily news briefings.1618
  • New York Times, July 9 and 17, 2025, and Washington Post, July 14, 2025, as summarised in an FBI daily news briefing and a New York Field Office situation report.222423
  • The Hill, November 20, 2025, and Politico and Bloomberg, November 21, 2025, as summarised in an FBI daily news briefing and a New York Field Office situation report.3125

Footnotes

  1. Wikipedia, “Pam Bondi.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Bondi ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. U.S. Senate, roll call vote 33, 119th Congress, 1st session, February 4, 2025, on the nomination of Pamela Bondi to be Attorney General: confirmed, 54–46. https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00033.htm ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. U.S. Department of Justice, press release, “Attorney General Pamela Bondi Releases First Phase of Declassified Epstein Files,” February 27, 2025. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-pamela-bondi-releases-first-phase-declassified-epstein-files ↩ ↩2

  4. Attorney General Pamela Bondi to FBI Director Kash Patel, February 27, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02847765 (a second copy is in the release at https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00023494). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. United States v. Maxwell, No. 20 Cr. 330 (PAE), Opinion & Order of August 11, 2025 (Engelmayer, J.), pp.6–8. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00015133 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 8, 2025, summarising the Associated Press, Washington Post, Fox News, Wall Street Journal and New York Post of July 7, 2025, under the heading “Epstein ‘Client List’ Doesn’t Exist, Justice Department Says, Walking Back Theory AG Bondi Had Promoted.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655247 p.3. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  7. United States v. Maxwell, Opinion & Order of August 11, 2025, pp.9–10. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00015133 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  8. United States v. Maxwell, Opinion & Order of August 11, 2025, pp.30–31. https://epstein-data.com/DOJ-OGR-00015133 ↩ ↩2

  9. FBI Daily News Briefing, November 17, 2025, summarising the Associated Press of November 14, 2025, under the heading “At Trump’s Urging, AG Bondi Says US Will Investigate Epstein’s Ties to Clinton and Other Political Foes.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655527 p.3. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Andrews v. State, 82 So. 3d 979 (Fla. 1st DCA 2011), Case No. 1D10-0525, on appeal from the Circuit Court for Duval County, printed from a legal database in November 2018 and held in the release. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00797972 p.5. And Dolan v. State, 187 So. 3d 262 (Fla. 2d DCA 2016), attached as supplemental authority to a filing of November 28, 2017 in Epstein v. Rothstein, No. 50-2009CA040800 (Fla. 15th Cir.). https://epstein-data.com/EFTA02762612 p.5. ↩

  11. FBI Daily News Briefing, February 5, 2025, summarising the Associated Press of February 4, 2025, under the heading “Senate Confirms Pam Bondi as Attorney General.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655597 p.6. ↩ ↩2

  12. New York Post, February 27, 2025, “FBI withheld ‘thousands of pages’ of Jeffrey Epstein docs, Pam Bondi says — and she’s demanding they be turned over,” captured in the release. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00172149 pp.1–2. ↩ ↩2

  13. FBI Daily News Briefing, February 26, 2025, summarising Politico and WTVC of February 25, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655686 p.3. ↩

  14. Paul G. Cassell, Bradley J. Edwards and Brittany Henderson to Attorney General Pam Bondi, February 28, 2025 (pp.3–5), with the covering email chain of March 2 and 4, 2025 (pp.1–2). https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00175194 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  15. U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Secretariat, eCATS summary sheet, work package ECATS-2025-357511. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00173369 ↩ ↩2

  16. FBI Daily News Briefing, March 4, 2025, summarising Fox News and CNN of March 3, 2025, under the heading “AG Pam Bondi Says FBI Delivered ‘Truckload’ of Epstein Files.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655668 pp.3–4. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. FBI Daily News Briefing, March 5, 2025, summarising the New York Post of March 4, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655651 p.5. ↩ ↩2

  18. FBI Daily News Briefing, March 17, 2025, summarising Forbes of March 14, 2025, under the heading “Attorney General Bondi Again Says More Epstein Files Are Coming.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00163358 p.13. ↩ ↩2

  19. FBI Daily News Briefing, March 4, 2025, summarising a Washington Examiner opinion column of March 3, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655668 p.11. ↩

  20. Senator Richard J. Durbin, Ranking Member, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, to Attorney General Pam Bondi, July 18, 2025 (pp.1–4), with the Justice Department transmittal (p.5). https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00173350 ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  21. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 2, 2025, summarising the Associated Press of July 1, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655234 p.10. ↩ ↩2

  22. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 10, 2025, summarising the New York Times of July 9, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655264 p.3. ↩ ↩2

  23. FBI Daily News Briefing, July 15, 2025, summarising the Washington Post of July 14, 2025, under the heading “Under Trump, the Government Mobilizes in Response to Fringe Theories.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00163687 p.4. ↩ ↩2

  24. FBI New York Field Office situation report, July 18, 2025, summarising the New York Times and other outlets of July 17, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01656356 p.1. ↩ ↩2

  25. FBI New York Field Office situation report, November 24, 2025, summarising Politico and Bloomberg of November 21, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01650531 p.2. ↩ ↩2

  26. U.S. Department of Justice, Executive Secretariat, eCATS summary sheet, work package ECATS-2025-398054. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00173355 ↩

  27. FBI Executive Secretariat referral of DOJ ExecSec 25-398054, July 25, 2025, forwarded within the New York Field Office on July 29, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00173348 pp.1–2. ↩

  28. FBI New York Field Office situation report, August 6, 2025, summarising CBS News of August 5, 2025, under the heading “House Oversight Chair Issues Subpoenas for Epstein Files.” https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01649358 p.1. ↩

  29. FBI Daily News Briefing, October 8, 2025, summarising the New York Post and Daily Beast of October 7, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655462 p.4. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  30. FBI FOIA ESI Request Form, September 3, 2025, FOIA request 1662668. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA00172490 ↩

  31. FBI Daily News Briefing, November 21, 2025, summarising The Hill of November 20, 2025. https://epstein-data.com/EFTA01655548 p.4. ↩ ↩2

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