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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Hey, it's Michael. Before today's episode, I want to tell you about a new show from our colleagues over at Serial Productions. It's a new five-part series featuring New York Times columnist Em Gessen, and it's a remarkable one. In the show, Em tells a story about a cousin named Alan who is currently in prison for murder for hire.
It's a story about family, about what we do when members of our family do bad things. It's about betrayal and the craving to know the truth. It's thoughtful, it's complicated, and it's very funny. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts, and we hope you check it out. The series is called The Idiot. Okay, here's today's show. From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.
Today, how Pam Bondi went from being the loyal attorney general of President Trump's dreams to a blundering figure whom he abruptly fired on Thursday afternoon. I turn to the journalist who broke the story that Bondi was about to be ousted, White House reporter Tyler Pager. It's Friday, April 3rd. Well, Tyler, here we go again. Another one bites the dust.
Yes, a second cabinet member fired by President Trump in four weeks. And arguably, this firing ends the career of a cabinet member who is even more important to the president than the last one, Kristi Noem, head of Homeland Security, because this is the attorney general.
And this attorney general, until the very end, strikes me as a very paradoxical figure because she is simultaneously as absolutely loyal a foot soldier as you could fathom, and yet somebody who keeps letting the president down. You're absolutely right, Michael. Pam Bondi was executing on a wide-ranging agenda that the president outlined when he ran for president for a third time.
He wanted to lead a retribution campaign against his political opponents, and much of that depended on having an attorney general who willing to shatter decades-long norms about how a Justice Department operates, which traditionally is independent from the White House. In no way, shape, or form did Pam Bondi even try to be independent.
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Chapter 2: How did Pam Bondi's loyalty lead to her downfall?
Jeffrey Epstein's client list is sitting on her desk ready for her review. And then the next day.
So this morning I was at the White House meeting with President Trump. and Vice President J.D. Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel. And they presented us with, let me show you.
She joins a meeting of conservative influencers at the White House.
And they presented us with this binder.
And gives them a binder.
It says on the front, the Epstein files phase one by order of Attorney General Pamela Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel.
Labeled Epstein files that they walk out of the White House waving for the cameras. It's a lot. And a lot of this has already been seen before. But very quickly, they become disenchanted with this release.
Don't sit there and tell me there's nothing when you told me there was something. That's the issue for the AG.
Feeling that they haven't actually learned anything new from it. And as with the indictments that President Trump wants, Here comes Bondi making a big show, making big promises, and not delivering.
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Chapter 3: What role did Pam Bondi play in Trump's agenda?
Attorney General Bondi, I'm going to finish my answer.
No.
And even refuses a request to turn around and apologize to survivors of Jeffrey Epstein who are in the hearing room. Right. And then as the hearing goes on... The gentleman from Kentucky is recognized... It's becoming increasingly clear that Republicans, too, are really pressing her... To my right...
is an email that was sent by the victim's lawyers to the DOJ. It was a list of names not to release. What did the DOJ do with this email? They released this email in the document production. Literally the worst thing you could do to the survivors, you did.
And I think what it illustrates is just how much the Epstein issue and the outrage around it is a bipartisan one.
And with that, we're going to stand in recess. We will go as quick as we can and vote. We have two quick votes on the floor and we will back without objection. We stand in recess.
Right. I actually ended up watching that hearing and I was struck by how many pretty demonstrably partisan Republicans just did not seem eager to lend her a helping hand. Yeah. And then last month, five Republicans on that very committee blindsided their own leadership and Pam Bondi joining Democrats to vote to subpoena her to testify under oath behind closed doors about the Epstein case. Right.
And just to state the obvious, if you're President Trump and you know your own party controls Congress, having that Congress subpoena your attorney general and have... Them forced to testify under oath about a scandal swirling around your presidency, Jeffrey Epstein, his emails, in which Trump himself is named a lot. That is not ideal. Definitely not.
And all of this just continues to reinforce doubts in the president's mind about whether Pam Bondi is the right person to continue to serve in this job. And on Monday, I got a tip that the president was on the verge of firing her. So I spent the last several days reporting that out, eventually getting enough sources to feel confident that the president was discussing making that move.
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