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WASHINGTON -- The Trump Department of Justice and FBI announced Monday that they had "conducted an exhaustive review" into the death of disgraced financier and child abuser Jeffrey Epstein and found more than 10,000 downloaded videos of illegal child sex abuse. Epstein, who killed himself in a New York prison cell in 2019, clearly was a monster.

The two-page memo delivers some bad news for the umbrage machine that churns out grievances that other, less pure conservatives may have missed. Specifically, the probe found no "client list" or evidence that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals.

The findings, first reported in Axios, put Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino in an awkward squeeze.

Bondi had teased the press with the release of a client list. Oops.

Before President Donald Trump picked Patel and Bongino, they were cool to the DOJ finding that Epstein killed himself. Forgive them for playing to the swath of the GOP base that wants to believe the government withheld information on Epstein's crimes and suicide. To a corner of the party, there is no such thing as being wrong. There's only lying.

Now that the three Trump sheriffs are in authority, they've had a closer look into the allegations. The result: They are compelled to acknowledge the likely reality that the serial sex abuser wasn't fool enough to leave a blackmail paper trail.

Such are the times. When our suspicions turn out to be unfounded, cry "cover-up." So, for many in the conservative Twitterverse, one-time heroes Bondi, Patel and Bongino are now sellouts and liars.

The truth is horrific enough without embellishment. Epstein used his wealth to lure underage girls into his orbit, where he could sexually abuse them and callously dismantle their self-esteem.

Add those elements together and you see a nightmare for prosecutors. To call once-abused girls to the stand opens the door for high-profile defense attorneys to demolish his young victims.

One prosecutor, however, successfully targeted Epstein. In 2008, he negotiated a plea deal that put the super-rich financier behind bars for more than a year and -- big deal, here -- forced him to register as a sex offender. Sadly, that prosecutor found that in these days of bad-faith politics, no good deed goes unpunished.

I refer to former Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta, who brokered the plea agreement when he was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida. The deal spared some 30 victims from testifying in a courtroom about the sexual abuse they experienced as teenagers. They didn't have to endure being shredded by the Epstein legal dream team, which included heavyweight Alan Dershowitz, Roy Black, who represented a Kennedy accused but acquitted of rape, and former Clinton special prosecutor Ken Starr.

Acosta argued at the time that the plea agreement "put the world on notice that (Epstein) was and is a sexual predator."

The worst part: The Miami Herald didn't see the story as worthy of a series until Acosta joined the Trump Cabinet.

The rape and assault of teenage girls didn't spark the paper's interest. Those poor traumatized girls only rated the Miami Herald's scrutiny when the Trump brand was attached.

Former Friend of Trump Elon Musk tweeted his "'Official Jeffrey Epstein Pedophile Arrest Counter.' It's 0000." And: "What's the time? Oh look, it's no-one-has-been-arrested-o'clock again ... "

That's crazy talk. After the Miami Herald ran with the story, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York unsealed an indictment that charged the money guy with two counts of sex trafficking of minors, which put Epstein inside a cell, where he killed himself. Epstein's gal pal Ghislaine Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years for conspiring with Epstein to sex-traffic minors.

And Epstein is in hell.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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