Pam Bondi Just Made a Fatal Political Mistake

Pam Bondi Just Made a Fatal Political Mistake

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #771: Wednesday, February 11th, 2026.

Today was supposed to be strength.

It was supposed to be command. Control. Authority.

Instead, it looked like evasion wrapped in defiance.

Pam Bondi walked into that hearing with the posture of someone who believed she could muscle her way through questions about the Epstein files…redactions…withheld pages…selective transparency…and emerge untouched.

What she delivered instead was something far more consequential.

She delivered the image of protection.

And in politics…image is destiny.

Let’s be clear about what happened.

Lawmakers pressed her on why more than 200,000 pages remain withheld or heavily redacted. They pressed her on the standard used for those redactions.

They pressed her on whether reputational harm was being weighed more heavily than public transparency.

And rather than lean into sunlight…rather than say, “Release it all except what protects victims”….she leaned into institutional defensiveness.

She circled the wagons.

That may feel powerful in the moment.

It is not.

Because the Epstein story is no longer a fringe obsession. It is not a partisan fixation. It is not a niche curiosity.

It is a credibility test.

And when an Attorney General….appears more concerned about shielding the powerful…than reassuring the public…that credibility test becomes a referendum.

This is the part Bondi miscalculated.

You can fight a news cycle.

You cannot fight a compounding archive.

The DOJ has already released millions of pages. Congress has released tens of thousands more.

Journalists are combing through them. Attorneys are cross-referencing them. Lawmakers are building timelines from them.

Every redaction now becomes suspicious by default.

Every withheld page becomes a headline waiting to happen.

Every “trust us” becomes gasoline.

Bondi’s posture today did not slow that engine.

It accelerated it.

Because here is the political reality: when voters sense that powerful people are being insulated…they do not shrug. They harden.

They begin asking sharper questions.

They begin demanding cleaner processes.

They begin punishing anyone who appears to stand between them and the truth.

And that punishment…does not always come from the opposing party.

It often comes from inside.

The Republican Party has long argued it stands for law…order…and equal accountability.

If its own Attorney General appears to be managing transparency rather than maximizing it…that argument weakens.

Not because Democrats say so.

Because optics matter.

Bondi had a choice today.

She could have embraced radical transparency…invited independent review panels…welcomed bipartisan oversight…leaned into full disclosure except where victim safety required protection.

Instead, she leaned into resistance.

And resistance, in this climate…reads as concealment.

That is the fatal mistake.

Here’s why this actually plays into the hands of democracy-defending Americans.

For years, skeptics have argued that elites protect elites. That documents get buried. That power shields itself.

When an Attorney General appears defensive rather than expansive about disclosure… it reinforces that suspicion.

And reinforced suspicion fuels oversight.

Oversight fuels subpoenas.

Subpoenas fuel sworn testimony.

Sworn testimony fuels contradiction risk.

Contradiction risk fractures alliances.

The very instinct to control the narrative becomes the catalyst that expands it.

Bondi may believe she defended her institution today.

But institutions…do not regain trust by tightening their grip.

They regain trust by opening their hands.

And…if she continues down this path…if redactions remain broad…if withheld pages remain unexplained…if transparency is rationed instead of prioritized…the political cost will not stay confined to her office.

It will bleed outward.

Because this issue is uniquely combustible.

It involves minors. Power. Wealth. Secrecy. International implications. Sealed records. Broken public trust.

You do not manage an issue like that.

You flood it with sunlight.

Anything less reads as protection.

And…protection of the powerful…in a moment of populist suspicion….is electoral poison.

That’s why, ironically…today may mark the moment the dynamic shifts.

Not because Bondi collapsed.

But because she chose the wrong instinct…in front of a watching public.

Americans who care about democracy do not need hysteria.

They need contrast.

And Bondi provided it.

Contrast between transparency and defensiveness.

Contrast between disclosure and delay.

Contrast between equal accountability and perceived insulation.

When contrast becomes visible…pressure becomes bipartisan.

And when pressure becomes bipartisan….no party can fully contain it.

That’s the miscalculation.

In trying to project strength…she projected fear of disclosure.

In trying to protect her flank…she widened the battlefield.

In trying to control the damage…she amplified it.

The Epstein files were already a slow-burning credibility test.

Today poured oxygen on the coals.

And…if the Republican Party does not course-correct toward radical transparency… this will not be remembered as a procedural dispute.

It will be remembered as the moment voters decided that self-protection mattered more than truth.

Bondi may believe she drew a line today.

But the public saw something else:

A system still reluctant to fully open itself.

And that reluctance…not outrage, not partisanship….is what ultimately reshapes power.

Sunlight always wins. ALWAYS.

The only question is how much damage is done before leaders realize that resisting it only makes the blaze brighter.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack

Jack Hopkins

P.S. If you think this is just “another hearing,” you’re missing the shift. Every redaction fight, every withheld page, every defensive answer is building a record. And records don’t disappear…they compound. Stay focused. Stay factual. Keep demanding sunlight. That’s how pressure becomes change.