BREAKING: Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered the FBI to flag any mention of Donald Trump in the Jeffrey Epstein files during their review, according to Senator Dick Durbin.
Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill) pressed Justice Department leadership about their handling of files related to the federal investigation into the late Jeffrey Epstein, including reports that FBI personnel were instructed to “flag” any records that mentioned President Donald Trump, NBC News reported on Friday.
In a series of oversight letters written to Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Durbin questioned Bondi about “contradictions” in her public statements on the case, Patel about reports that he was “pressured” by Bondi to place 1,000 personnel on 24-hour shifts to mine roughly 100,000 Epstein-related records and Bongino about reported disputes among Trump officials about “the lack of transparency” in their handling of the high-profile case.
In the letters sent Friday, Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, asked each of the Trump administration officials to respond to information received by his office that suggested FBI personnel were specifically instructed to “flag” any records mentioning Trump.
“My office was told that these personnel were instructed to ‘flag’ any records in which President Trump was mentioned. … Why were personnel told to flag records in which President Trump was mentioned,” Durbin asked Bondi, Patel and Bongino in separate letters. “What happened to the records mentioning President Trump once they were flagged?”
A Durbin aide told NBC News that the senator’s office received that information from a protected FBI whistleblower disclosure.