The attorney general plans to ask a court to release the papers. But even if the request succeeds, it would fall far short of critics’ demands to release all investigative materials.
The administration asked the judge in the case to sentence the former officer to essentially the brief time he had served when he was first charged, and three years of supervised release.
The sustained backlash has exposed the hazards of the attorney general’s focus on courting President Trump, with the assumption that he maintains the total backing of his base.
The decision to sustain the prosecution of the Texas Democrat stands in contrast to the department’s decisions to drop or downgrade investigations of Trump allies or those he deems politically useful.
Representative Henry Cuellar, Democrat of Texas, was accused of bribery and money laundering on behalf of an oil and gas company owned by Azerbaijan’s leaders.
In a long social media post, President Trump praised Attorney General Pam Bondi and told his followers to “not waste Time and Energy” on the Jeffrey Epstein case.
Dan Bongino, now the deputy director of the F.B.I., during a hearing in Washington in 2020. Mr. Bongino pushed the idea of a cover-up in the Jeffrey Epstein case when he was a popular podcast host.
John Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, testifying before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligences’s Russia Investigation Task Force in May 2017.
A small but influential cohort of the president’s far-right political coalition spared him their ire but turned with a vengeance on the attorney general and the top officials at the F.B.I.
Connexion
