Senate Democrat Dick Durbin, D-Ill. sued the Justice Department leadership for processing files related to the federal investigation of the late Jeffrey Epstein, including reports that FBI officials were instructed to “flag” records that referenced to President Donald Trump.
In a series of supervisor letters written to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Durbin asked Bondi about the “contradiction” in the case’s official statement, and Patel placed 1,000 people on the 24-hour shift reported on the main 24-hour record, “transparency in handling famous cases.”
In a letter sent Friday, Durbin, a top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked each Trump administration official to respond to information received by his office, who proposed that FBI officials were instructed to “flag” records referring to Trump.
“My office was told these staff were instructed to “flag” the records President Trump mentioned. …Why was President Trump told to flag the mentioned records? “What happened to the records referring to President Trump after President Trump was flagged?”
Durbin Aide told NBC News that the Senator’s office received the information from the disclosure of a protected FBI whistleblower.
The FBI declined to request a comment on NBC News’ Durbin’s letter.
The letter shows Democrats’ latest attempts to draw attention to Epstein more than a week after the Justice Department released a memo outlining its decision to halt additional disclosures related to the investigation. The memo rocked Trump’s Maga base, creating an unusual rift between Trump and the far-right base that thrust him into power.
In the aftermath of the Department of Justice memo, Bondi is faced with blowback due to previous official statements that pointed out the existence of thousands of pages of additional documents related to Epstein, including the “client list.”
Durbin, like many Trump supporters last week, asked the Attorney General to harmonize her previous public declaration with her department’s findings that she was guaranteed in a case of “no further disclosure” and that the review of the records “did not reveal a list of guilty clients.”
“Why did the client list publicly claim on February 21st that he was ‘sitting on my desk right now’,” Durbin asked Bondy. “If it wasn’t on the client list, what was it “sitting on the desk” at that moment? ”
Bongino and Patel are also facing backlash online. They previously promoted conspiracy theories suggesting the Epstein case.
Patel said in the only post he has made on his personal social media account since the Justice Department memo was released, “conspiracy theory is not true” and “never before.” Durbin, aiming to draw attention to Patel’s past concealment proposals, asked the FBI director to detail the conspiracy theory he was referring to in his post.
“What is the conspiracy theory mentioned in the tweet “It was never true” on July 12th? ” the senator wrote to Patel.
NBC News previously reported that Bongino was “not furious,” skipping the day’s work and considering resigning from his post because the Justice Department handled the Epstein Files, Durbin questioned a former political commentator.
“After the release of the July 7 memorandum, what was the nature of the conflict between you and the White House and DOJ officials?” Durbin asked Bongino. “Is this dispute between you and the White House and the DOJ officials behind the absence of work on July 11?”
Durbin also questioned Trump officials about a report from the Wall Street Journal, where Trump allegedly wrote a letter to Epstein in 2003, and was included in a leather birthday album given to his 50th birthday, accompanied by a painting of a naked woman.
Trump denied that he had written the letter, and he filed a lawsuit against the newspaper to release the story. NBC News does not independently review the journal’s reporting.
A spokesman for newspaper publisher Dow Jones said in a statement:
“Did you review the correspondence between President Trump and Epstein? [of Epstein records]? ” asked Durbin.
Hours after the journal’s report, Trump on Thursday directed Bondi to prepare “an all related large ju court testimony related to Epstein” “on condition of court approval.” Bondi filed a motion on Friday requesting that the transcript of the Grand Jury related to the Epstein case be finalized.
“Given the public interest in the investigation work carried out by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Epstein, the Department will move the court to unravel the large ju court’s transcripts underlying the US vs Epstein, subject to the appropriate compilation of victim-related and other personal identification information,” the document states.
Frankthorpe V and Ryan J. Riley contributed.
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