BlazeTV’s Liz Wheeler, host of “The Liz Wheeler Show,” has faced an onslaught of criticism over her receipt and reporting on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s so-called “Epstein Files: Phase 1.” In conversation Friday with Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck, Wheeler discussed the White House’s hours-long reporting prohibition, known as an embargo, and events that primed the pump for a new wave of suspicion. She also addressed the apparent “open rebellion” under way at the FBI.
“What happens from here on out is actually the important part,” said Wheeler. “We have now identified that there are people trying to subvert the president from within the FBI.”
“What happens from this moment forward actually sets the course for the rest of the administration and signals to deep-staters in administrative agencies whether they can defy the president, and the attorney general, and the FBI director and get away with it or not,” added Wheeler.
Background
Attorney General Pam Bondi advocated last year for the release of the client list of the late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein — something President Donald Trump told podcaster Lex Fridman he would do if elected.
Bondi heightened the public’s anticipation last week with the suggestion that the list was on her desk and that its release was imminent.
Wheeler and 14 other prominent conservative media figures were invited to the White House on Thursday, given virtually no inkling as to the nature or reason for the visit. After meeting with various Cabinet officials, Wheeler and the others met with Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel and were each provided with a binder labeled “The Epstein Files: Phase 1.”
Despite her initial excitement over the prospect that the binder contained new and consequential information, Wheeler soon realized what Bondi would later admit in a public statement: “The first phase of declassified files largely contains documents that have been previously leaked but never released in a formal capacity by the U.S. government.”
In other words, barring the revelation that the FBI had apparently buried thousands of files and refused to turn them over to the Trump administration, phase one, as Bondi apparently put it, was a “nothingburger.”
The disappointment Thursday over the contents of the binder was palpable online. However, rather than direct their ire at the source, critics in many cases took aim at the messengers.
FBI withholding the meat
Wheeler told Beck, “People were very mad about what happened yesterday. And honestly, I don’t blame them for being mad. I am also very mad about what happened yesterday, because we all expected to get the dirtiest dirt that we have ever gotten.”
‘This, if true, is the scandal of the century.’
Bondi and Patel met with the conservative media figures at the White House Thursday, providing them with some sense of what was happening behind the scenes. Bondi then carted over a stack of white binders, which Wheeler indicated caused everyone’s jaws to drop.
“This is going to be the juicy stuff,” Wheeler recalled thinking. “This is what we were waiting for.”
Wheeler said that Bondi quickly dashed the group’s hopes, referring to her Feb. 27 letter to Patel. In the letter, Bondi indicated that she learned from a source Wednesday “that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein.”
The AG noted further in her letter that this was at odds with the FBI’s prior assurance that what ended up becoming the contents of the phase-one binder was all the bureau had.
Wheeler stressed to Beck that “this, if true, is the scandal of the century” — that there are deep-staters in the FBI defying Trump, Bondi, and Patel “to save the swamp.”
Beck suggested that such defiance would qualify as “open rebellion.”
‘We begged for the embargo to be lifted.’
The binder provides virtually no novel insights into Epstein or his possible accomplices but serves as primary evidence of the apparent efforts by elements of federal law enforcement to preclude the Trump administration and the American people, by extension, from knowing the full truth.
Maddening silence
Despite knowing that the phase-one binder was effectively a “nothingburger,” Wheeler and the other conservative media figures were told on their way out of the White House grounds that they could not report on its contents until mid-afternoon.
The trouble with the embargo, Wheeler told Beck, was that the press had already snapped photos of them giddily exiting the White House with the binders in hand, Epstein’s name emblazoned on the exterior for all to see.
“All of a sudden, we’re in this situation where the press has gotten photos of us with these binders that appear to be real Epstein files. And yet, we knew that they were not. We begged for the embargo to be lifted,” said Wheeler.
Not only was Wheeler unable to pour cold water on the growing excitement that the Epstein client list might finally be divulged in full, but she was precluded from breaking the story about how deep-staters have apparently worked to thwart the will of the president and hide information of interest to the American people.
Wheeler indicated she is “pissed off” about the ordeal, given that she has worked diligently to earn the American public’s trust with her reporting on COVID-19, the vaccines, the attempts on Trump’s life, and the events surrounding Jan. 6, 2021.
“I’m an honest broker. They would know that I would never intentionally do this,” said Wheeler. “That’s why I’m just telling this story.”
While able to vouch for the integrity of Trump, Patel, and incoming FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Beck noted, “The only player in this that I can’t vouch for — and it’s only because I don’t personally know her; I’ve never had any interaction with her — is Pam Bondi.”
Bondi requested the remainder of the documents from the FBI by 8 a.m. Friday morning. She has yet to announce the receipt of Epstein documents of any gravity.
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