FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media, in the Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington D.C., June 27, 2025. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno/File Photo
Although right-wing pundit and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly is a Donald Trump supporter, she is highly critical of Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Trump wants to move on from Epstein, saying that if Bondi has any important information to release, she will do so. But Kelly believes Trump is being dismissive of his MAGA base's strong interest in the case.
CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, in an article published by New York Magazine on August 1, argues that Trump officials' promises of new Epstein-related releases are merely performative.
"The Trump Administration’s move to release some material from the Jeffrey Epstein files is perfectly engineered to look as if it seeks meaningful disclosure of explosive secrets but actually to result in production of next to nothing, if anything at all," Honig writes. "It's a nuanced performance piece, more about appearances than genuine transparency. The (Trump) Administration is leaning heavily on this bit of artifice."
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Honig continues, "This week, for example, Vice President JD Vance trumpeted Donald Trump's commitment to coming clean: 'First of all, the president has been very clear. We're not shielding anything. The president has directed the attorney general to release all credible information and, frankly, to go and find additional credible information related to the Jeffrey Epstein case.' Nice sound bite. Too bad it's false."
The former U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutor goes on to describe the "subtle but vital discrepancy between Vance's statement and reality."
"Neither Trump nor Bondi has released, or requested the release of, 'all credible information,' as Vance claimed," Honig explains. "The actual request to unseal 'grand-jury testimony' is far narrower…. It's entirely unclear whether federal judges will permit the unsealing of any grand-jury materials."
Honig adds, "The problem for the DOJ — or perhaps the convenient and intended fallback — is that grand-jury testimony is presumptively secret and the federal rules lay out specific scenarios in which it can be disseminated…. Here’s the crux: Trump and Bondi can do whatever they want with non-grand-jury information — the vast majority of the case file — yet they’ve declined thus far to produce those materials…. Despite public declarations by Trump, Vance, Bondi, and others about their commitment to transparency, the reality is we likely won’t see anything beyond a thin, curated slice of the Epstein files unless the (Trump) Administration chooses to make those materials public."
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Elie Honig's full article for New York Magazine is available at this link.