Bondi's 'Phase 1' Epstein binder rollout falls flat
Six days after Attorney General Pam Bondi tells Fox News a client list is 'sitting on my desk,' the DOJ hands right-wing influencers binders labeled 'The Epstein Files: Phase 1' at the White House. They contain almost nothing new — a fiasco that begins the collapse of the administration's credibility on the case.
In the first weeks of the second Trump administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi raised expectations that the government was about to expose Epstein’s network. In a February 2025 Fox News interview, asked about an Epstein client list, Bondi said it was “sitting on my desk right now to review.” The remark electrified the administration’s base, which had been promised transparency throughout the 2024 campaign.
The Binder Stunt
On February 27, 2025, roughly a dozen right-wing influencers — among them Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok, Rogan O’Handley, Scott Presler, Liz Wheeler, and Chad Prather — walked out of the West Wing of the White House holding white binders emblazoned “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.” The DOJ released the same material to the public shortly afterward.
A Hyped Release of Almost Nothing
The contents were an immediate embarrassment. Much of what the binders held was Epstein’s address book and flight logs — material that had circulated publicly for years — now reprinted with redactions. There was no client list. Several of the influencers who received the binders acknowledged there was little new in them. Bondi blamed the FBI for failing to turn over a fuller set of records and promised more was coming.
The Credibility Hole
The “Phase 1” fiasco was the first crack in the administration’s transparency promise. It set up the betrayal that followed: after Bondi and Deputy AG Todd Blanche briefed President Trump in the spring that his own name appeared in the files, the administration’s posture flipped from hype to suppression. By July 2025, the DOJ and FBI released an unsigned memo stating that a “systematic review revealed no incriminating ‘client list’” — directly contradicting Bondi’s “on my desk” claim — and Trump began dismissing the entire matter as a “hoax.” The gap between February’s promises and July’s denials became the engine of the bipartisan revolt that forced the Transparency Act to a vote.