Big Nothing Over Epstein

JUST IN: FBI deputy director Dan Bongino took the day off after "clashing" with AG Pam Bondi at the White House over the Epstein files, according to Axios.

The alleged fight erupted after a 10-hour video was released with a minute missing.

Some "insiders" believed Bongino quit;… pic.twitter.com/mDo8RdOTWA

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) July 11, 2025

Yesterday morning, Sundance posted at Conservative Treehouse:

For a significant -albeit unknown- portion of President Trump’s support base, the case against Jeffrey Epstein was/is a strong part of how they positioned their MAGA support. That coalition is now furious and threatening to withdraw support for President Trump on all other policy areas.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche affirmed today the conclusions within the DOJ/FBI memo about the Epstein matter are factually the conclusions shared by all leadership within the Dept of Justice and FBI.

Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino are all telling the same story.

But that fell apart almost immediately with the reported "clash" between Bongino and Bondi at the White House. In the real world, if you "clash" with someone at least two levels above you on the org chart, you're out. According to NBC News,

Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino is considering leaving his job after a heated confrontation with Attorney General Pam Bondi over his frustration with how the Justice Department has handled the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to a person who has spoken with Bongino and a source familiar with the interactions that Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel have had with Bondi.

“Bongino is out of control furious,” the person who has spoken with the deputy FBI director said. “This destroyed his career. He’s threatening to quit and torch Pam unless she’s fired.”

Wait a moment. Bongino has a career? According to Wikipedia,

Daniel John Bongino (born December 4, 1974) is an American conservative political commentator, radio host, and former law enforcement officer who has served as the 20th deputy director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) since 2025. He hosted The Dan Bongino Show on Rumble and previously hosted Unfiltered with Dan Bongino on Fox News until April 2023.

Bongino began his career as a New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer from 1995 to 1999 before serving as a U.S. Secret Service agent from 1999 to 2011. He later unsuccessfully ran for Congress three times as a Republican. On February 23, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that Bongino had been named the next deputy director of the FBI. He assumed office on March 17, after concluding his commentating roles on March 14.

Which career has this destroyed? He was a police officer and a Secret Service agent. Then he was a three-times-unsuccessful candidate for congress. Then he was a talk show host who never quite caught on. Then he was able to persuade someone that he should be a deputy FBI director, a job he might have kept if he wasn't such a hothead. The NBC story continues,

. . . This came after a confrontation Wednesday at a meeting with Bondi and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles during which Bongino and Patel were asked about a news story suggesting they were dissatisfied with the decision not to release any additional Epstein files, according to the source familiar with the perspectives of DOJ leaders and an additional source familiar with the meeting. The meeting was first reported by Axios.

The meeting “got pretty heated,” another source who was briefed on the meeting said.

“Bondi, [Deputy Attorney General] Todd Blanche, Patel and Bongino were on the same page on this all along, until the criticism started to come in,” the source familiar with DOJ leaders’ perspectives said. “Bongino couldn’t take it.”

. . . Investigators involved in the case have said for years that there is no Epstein client list and there are no secrets buried in unreleased files.

. . . A DOJ statement from Monday said its review “revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

In the end, the source close to DOJ leaders said, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accepted those findings, knowing that releasing them would result in criticism from Trump supporters. They believed Patel and Bongino were with them, but that may no longer be true.

As of yestersay, Bongino was making noises that it was either he or Bondi:

BREAKING: Source close to Dan Bongino tells me it’s either him or Pam Bondi, and that he won’t stay at FBI if she stays at DOJ.

— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) July 11, 2025

Other sources said FBI Director Kash Patel was maybe or maybe not considering going out the door with Bongino, but The Gateway Pundit reported,

However, investigative journalist John Solomon of Just the News set the record straight with an update on Friday night.

According to Solomon, Patel is overseeing one of the largest criminal conspiracy investigations in FBI history—a decade-long look into the coordinated effort to sabotage Donald Trump’s presidency, re-election, and comeback bid.

It quoted from an interview with Solomon on X:

Now, it is true — Dan Bongino is taking a few days to reconsider whether he wants to stay in the job. That’s his decision. He’s gone through these things before. There have been times when he’s been on radio, he got mad, took a couple of days off. I bet you he’ll come back when it’s all done.

But Kash Patel is going nowhere.

. . . There’s a big case that’s been built by the Justice Department and the FBI.

It’s been masked by a lot of this infighting and drama and soap opera. The matter is — MAGA-base Americans are going to be happy when they see where this is all heading in the next few weeks.

Kash Patel is going nowhere. I hope Dan Bongino isn’t going anywhere either — but I do think he’s going to take some time over the weekend to think that through.

I suspect, though, that Bongino is a little too much of a grandstander just to calm down and get back with the program. From the Wikipedia link,

Bongino was criticized by former colleagues at the Secret Service for using his Secret Service background as part of his run for political office and for his claim of having secret information based on conversations he overheard in the Obama White House. A former colleague accused him of "trying to draw attention to himself and...hijacking the Secret Service brand." Bongino said he had access to "high-level discussions" in the White House.

I suspect Bongino has proven himself too much of a loose cannon in this episode, especially if his colleagues and superiors had assumed he was with the Epstein file program, which I can't think is any but the correct view, and people in the White House inner circle like Susie Wiles will find a way to let him ease himself out with minimal fuss. Certainly this is what happens in the real world.