Attorney General Pam Bondi was left “blindsided and annoyed” by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s sudden crusade against former President Barack Obama, according to a new report.
Bondi has been under intense pressure to draw a line under the Jeffrey Epstein furor that erupted almost three weeks ago when the Justice Department abruptly announced that no “client list” belonging to the disgraced financier existed, sparking bitter infighting among President Donald Trump’s MAGA coalition.
The situation intensified on Wednesday when The Wall Street Journal reported that the AG had informed Trump that he was mentioned multiple times in the Epstein files in May, despite his denying a week earlier that any such briefing had taken place.
The president is suing the WSJ over an earlier report alleging that he sent a “bawdy” 50th birthday card to the late pedophile, which Trump has denied sending or drawing. The president has not been accused of any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein.
“She has very little time to turn this around,” one unnamed House Republican told Politico of the pressure on Bondi, while another warned that “she is in for a rough September at the very least” when Congress returns from its summer recess.
Gabbard, meanwhile, was previously in the president’s bad books after opposing his air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, causing her to be excluded from high-level planning meetings, but is now firmly back in his good graces after accusing Obama of “treasonous conspiracy” and referring his former officials to the Justice Department.
“She’s, like, hotter than everybody,” Trump said at a White House event on Tuesday at which Gabbard was present. “She’s the hottest one in the room right now.”
Bondi was reportedly much less pleased with her intervention, according to The New York Times, feeling she had been placed “in a nearly untenable position” by her colleague’s actions.
The AG was reportedly “given little warning” in advance of Gabbard’s press conference a week ago, at which she accused Obama of ordering a more damning and definitive intelligence assessment to be published regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, allegedly with the intention of undermining Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.
A spokesperson for Obama labelled Gabbard’s claims “outrageous” and said: “These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
The spokesperson was referring to the ongoing uproar over Epstein that has engulfed Trump’s presidency and stubbornly resisted his efforts to shift the narrative elsewhere.
At the time of Gabbard’s announcement, Bondi was “fresh off a nasty fight with a top FBI official over who was responsible for the political mess around the Epstein case,” according to the NYT, quoting insiders, and “felt blindsided and annoyed.”
The newspaper’s sources added that, “in reality, Ms. Gabbard was acting as little more than a proxy for a president demanding action on his vengeance agenda.”
As a result, Bondi’s staff “scrambled for a solution that would satisfy Mr Trump while not committing the department to a tit-for-tat Obama investigation with unpredictable legal and political consequences.”
After Gabbard asserted her claims at a press conference on Wednesday, Bondi’s team posted a four-paragraph statement on its website reporting that it had formed a “strike force” to pursue Gabbard’s accusations, adding that it “takes alleged weaponization of the intelligence community with the utmost seriousness.”
The statement included a line from Bondi that alluded to Gabbard in glowing terms: “The Department of Justice is proud to work with my friend Director Gabbard, and we are grateful for her partnership in delivering accountability for the American people.
“We will investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.”
Olivia Coleman, a spokesperson for Gabbard, likewise denied that the two officials were at odds over the matter, commenting: “Director Gabbard and Attorney General Bondi have been in frequent contact and are working together to hold those responsible for manufacturing the Russia hoax accountable.”
The Independent has contacted the Department of Justice for further comment.
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