A video still from the NBC archive showing Donald Trump talking with Jeffrey Epstein at a party in Mar-A-Lago from 1992.
NBC
Ranking member Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., arrives for the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in Dirksen building on Tuesday, June 17, 2025.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
Durbin’s letters, addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino, add to the pressure on the Trump administration over Bondi’s decision to withhold from the public evidence about Epstein despite her past promises.
Durbin is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has oversight over the Justice Department and the FBI.
“Who made the decision to reassign hundreds of New York Field Office personnel to this March review of Epstein-related records?” Durbin asked in his letters.
“Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned?” he asked.
An FBI spokesperson told CNBC in an email, “The FBI has no comment,” when asked about Durbin’s letters.
Trump is a former friend of Epstein, who died from suicide in a Manhattan federal jail in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on child sex trafficking charges.
On Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s signature was sent to Epstein in 2003 for this 50th birthday. Trump has angrily denied writing such a letter and said he will sue the Journal.
Durbin’s letters detailed Justice Department and FBI actions in March, in the weeks after Bondi told Fox News on Feb. 21 that the so-called Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review.”
On Feb. 27, Bondi drew criticism after releasing binders of documents related to Epstein to conservative influencers and commentators, which turned out to consist of files that were previously publicly available.
“After intense blowback from this incident, Attorney General Bondi then appeared on another FOX News show, Life Liberty Levin, and claimed that a ‘whistleblower’ told her that [Manhattan U..S. Attorney’s Office was] ‘sitting on thousands of pages of documents'”; that ‘we will get everything’; that she was ‘assured’ there was more; and that the country would eventually see ‘the full Epstein files,” Durbin wrote.
Durbin said his office had learned that after that, the “FBI was pressured to put approximately 1,000 personnel in its Information Management Division … on 24-hour shifts to review approximately 100,000 Epstein-related records in order to produce more documents that could then be released on an arbitrarily short deadline.”
“This effort, which reportedly took place from March 14 through the end of March, was haphazardly supplemented by hundreds of FBI New York Field Office personnel, many of whom lacked the expertise to identify statutorily-protected information regarding child victims and child witnesses or properly handle FOIA requests,” the letter said.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned.”
Durbin then referenced a well-known quote by Trump about Epstein, made to a magazine when they were still friends.
“Notably, in 2002, Mr. Trump said of Mr. Epstein, ‘I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy, He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side,’ ” Durbin wrote.
On July 7, the Justice Department and FBI, in a memo, said it had concluded that there was no Epstein client list, and supported the long-standing official finding that Epstein died by suicide.
“There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions,” the memo said. “We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
“While we have labored to provide the public with maximum information regarding Epstein and ensured examination of any evidence in the government’s possession, it is the determination of the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation that no further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted,” the memo said.
