President Donald Trump has been complaining about Attorney General Pam Bondi over high-profile prosecutions going off the rails and her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday on Trump’s grievances, pointing to Bondi’s failure to prosecute the president’s longtime political enemies, including former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. 

Trump also reportedly backed Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ assessment that Bondi ‘whiffed’ on the Epstein files, something Wiles told Vanity Fair in the magazine’s controversial cover story last month. 

Longtime Trump political ally Steve Bannon told the paper that Bondi is ‘bleeding support,’ disappointing both the president and ‘President Trump’s most loyal troops.’

‘Folks are desperate for action and just haven’t seen it,’ Bannon continued, pointing to how Trump’s base wants to see investigations into the 2020 election – which Trump continues to falsely claim that he won – and the 2016 Russia investigation, which Trump believes was a Democratic effort to derail his first term.

The White House was quick to defend the attorney general, sending quotes to the Daily Mail from the president, vice president, Wiles, press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

Rubio, Wiles and Bondi all cut their teeth in Florida politics.  

‘Pam is doing an excellent job. She has been my friend for many years. Tremendous progress is being made against radical left lunatics who are good at only one thing, cheating in elections and the crimes they commit,’ the statement from Trump said. 

President Donald Trump has been complaining about Attorney General Pam Bondi after several high-profile prosecutions failed and over her handling of the Epstein files

President Donald Trump has been complaining about Attorney General Pam Bondi after several high-profile prosecutions failed and over her handling of the Epstein files 

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters Sunday night on board Air Force One. Trump has wanted the Department of Justice to pursue a number of political investigations

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters Sunday night on board Air Force One. Trump has wanted the Department of Justice to pursue a number of political investigations 

While the attorney general is selected by the president, the DOJ is supposed to maintain some independence from the White House, but Trump has pushed Bondi to blur this line. 

The Journal reported that Trump’s criticisms are part of an intense campaign by the president to pressure the DOJ to more aggressively pursue his agenda.

Comey, who became a thorn in the president’s side amid the Russia investigation, and James, who brought a major fraud case against Trump’s company, had been indicted, but a judge threw out those cases in November. 

The judge ruled that Lindsey Halligan, a former personal attorney of Trump’s, whom the president named in September as acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was installed improperly. 

Trump has pushed for the cases to continue. 

The Journal reported that Trump has floated to his allies appointing special counsels at the Justice Department to speed up the agency’s work. 

On Sunday night, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed that the DOJ is investigating him. 

Despite appointing Powell in his first term, Trump has bad-mouthed the Fed Chairman for months, expressing dismay that Powell hasn’t done more to lower interest rates that could give a boost to the president’s economy. 

In a Vanity Fair interview that was published last month, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said that Attorney General Pam Bondi 'whiffed' on the Epstein files

In a Vanity Fair interview that was published last month, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said that Attorney General Pam Bondi ‘whiffed’ on the Epstein files 

Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions Former Attorney General Bill Barr

President Donald Trump had a falling out with both of his first term attorneys general. He got angry with Attorney General Jeff Sessions (left) over his recusal decision on the Russia probe and Attorney General Bill Barr (right) over Barr saying there wasn’t fraud in the 2020 election 

The newspaper also reported that Trump has complained frequently about Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files, which has provided the president with a drip, drip, drip of political problems since he returned to office. 

While some of the problems are of Trump’s own creation – he had promised a full release of the files when campaigning in 2024 – Bondi teased fresh information by handing out binders to influencers in February, made up of already publicly available documents. 

‘I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,’ Wiles said of Bondi in Vanity Fair. ‘First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk.’ 

‘There is no client list, and it sure as well wasn’t on her desk,’ Wiles said.   

Since a bipartisan group of lawmakers forced the Epstein files release, Trump has continued to complain about Bondi’s role in the saga, the Journal said, though he has treated her nicely when in public together. 

Both Trump and Bondi attended last month’s Kennedy Center Honors. 

At the same time, Bondi, for instance, wasn’t in Florida at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago press conference earlier this month, announcing the capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro – despite the DOJ being heavily involved. 

Trump grew to dislike both his first-term AG picks – Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr. 

The president became angry at Sessions and eventually fired him after Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, with Sessions’ deputy, Rod Rosenstein, appointing Special Counsel Robert Mueller to handle the case. 

Trump’s split with Barr came after the AG told the Associated Press after the 2020 election that there was no evidence of widespread fraud, which the president claimed. 

Barr resigned shortly thereafter.Â