Pam Bondi | Bonding for cover

MAGA, or Make America Great Again, believers are driven by faith. A core tenet of their faith is that there is a ‘deep state’ in America that controls power for the benefit of an elite, and it is not accountable to the people or the law. MAGA voters are the wind behind the sails of President Donald Trump. A part of MAGA has now turned on itself, suspecting that some members of the Trump administration have enlisted in the deep state. In the eye of this new MAGA storm is Pam Bondi — the U.S. Attorney-General, a long-time ally of Mr. Trump and until she ceased to be, a darling of his voter base.

MAGA believers do not want to question their own faith in the ‘supreme leader’, and instead turned their ire on Ms. Bondi. Mr. Trump has thrown his weight behind Ms. Bondi, who stands between him and the fury of the faithful.

He has also asked her to heed to their clamour and release more information related to Jeffrey Epstein, an ultra rich, influential sex offender who died in jail allegedly by suicide in 2019. Rumours that Epstein kept a ‘client list’ of his trafficking network have swirled in the MAGA universe for long, and Ms. Bondi herself seemed to vouch for it. “It’s sitting on my desk right now to review. That’s been a directive by President Trump,” she had said in February 2025, during an interview to Fox News, when asked if the Justice Department would release the alleged list of clients.

Revolt in the base

But the Justice Department and the FBI that comes under it declared in early July that Epstein indeed died by suicide, and there was no client list and no further investigation into his activities was required. The MAGA base rose in revolt. That this came as unsigned memo into public domain itself points to the importance of the whole affair for the MAGA base. Not signing off the memo did not shield Ms. Bondi, however. Commentators that shape the MAGA world blamed her for what they saw as a new cover-up. Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson, Laura Loomer, Megyn Kelly, and Glenn Beck, all influential voices in the Trump universe blamed Ms. Bondi for the mess. Many are calling for her resignation. She was one of the early converts into the MAGA camp and Mr. Trump found in her an extremely valuable ally in the key Republican State of Florida where was elected Attorney-General in 2011. She was a member of Mr. Trump’s defence team in an impeachment proceeding in his first term as President.

Just as the MAGA world was broiling in speculation that they had been sold out, a report in the Wall Street Journal alleged Mr. Trump had sent a note to Epstein on his 50th birthday, before his conviction in the sex case. Mr. Trump had a public association with Epstein but has denied any wrongdoing. He has also denied the latest WSJ story.

Though both Democrats and a section of his MAGA supporters cry foul, it is the reaction of the latter that worries Mr. Trump more. His initial response was to disown his own supporters and call the entire Epstein saga a hoax. ‘….“new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker…. They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years,” he said. But when the storm continued and threatened to scatter his base, he made another turn, directing Ms. Bondi to release more information related to the Epstein case.

The Justice Department has pleaded a federal court in New York to unseal the records of a grand jury trial, including the testimony of Epstein. That will not happen easily, if at all, as the laws that regulate information related to jury trials take into account the privacy of crime victims and other factors. As of now, Mr. Trump and Ms. Bondi, who have bonded more to shield each another, hope the storm will blow over.

The Epstein episode is, in a twisted way, the validation of the conspiracy theory that deep state is always at work. It threatens and consolidates the MAGA rationale at once, hence.