Ex-Trump White House official 'stunned' he's now 'sidestepping' MAGA base
Former Trump administration communications official Alyssa Farah Griffin expressed her surprise on CNN at the rapidly unfolding chaos over the Justice Department's announcement that they have concluded their review of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case, and that there was no "client list" — which kicked off a revolt of MAGA loyalists, and reportedly has FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino considering resignation.
"This is the first time I can really remember that Trump is sidestepping his base and not doing what they're very vocally asking him to do," said Griffin, a frequent critic of her former boss. "And so as there's these calls now by some on the right for [Attorney General] Pam Bondi to step aside or to resign or be fired, the thing I would say is, if Donald Trump wants all of the information the government has on Jeffrey Epstein to be released, he can make that available. He can direct the attorney general to release it. He can move to whether it may be law enforcement sensitive, to declassify that and make it public. So the fact that he's not, I think, raises a lot of questions. And this is an issue this White House is not going to be able to make go away overnight."
What makes matters worse for Trump, she continued, is that "another White House would be able to say, hey, we're — we, the Department of Justice — is independent. We don't tell them what to do. But that is not how this DOJ and this White House operate. So folks are going to expect Donald Trump to weigh in on this."
"Well, that's the thing," said anchor Jake Tapper. "I mean, it's very easy for the Laura Loomers of the world or whomever to blame this on Pam Bondi, the attorney general. But I just can't imagine that she's not doing anything that President Trump doesn't want her to be doing, because, as you note, like, this is probably the least independent attorney general in the history of attorneys general."
"Yeah, I would be stunned, just based on the job I held in the first Trump administration, if that DOJ memo from earlier this week went out without White House signoff beforehand," said Griffin. "There's just — there's a coordination process that would be underway. There is, would definitely at minimum, be a heads-up to the White House that we are going to say there's no list being released, that he was not murdered, he killed himself, among other things. So the idea that the White House is sort of a bystander in this, that doesn't have a dog in this fight, I don't think is accurate."
That being said, she added, "I think those around Donald Trump are advising him for as long as you can make this not your problem, let it be a DOJ problem. Let Bongino and Pam and Kash work this out and let them fight amongst themselves, as he's going to try to focus on other things like trade deals, among other things. But this is one of the real issues with his base that I don't think he can just hope is going to go away."
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