The FBI deputy director, Daniel Bongino, has been engaged in an ongoing dispute with the attorney general, Pam Bondi, over the “botching” of the Jeffrey Epstein case, refusing to report to work on Friday amid speculation he is on the verge of resigning from his position, according to reports.

Last weekend, the Department of Justice and the FBI released a brief memo concluding they had no evidence the financier and convicted sex offender did not commit suicide or that he possessed a “client list” that he used to blackmail powerful people with whom he socialized. 

Mr. Bongino, who before joining the FBI had expressed doubts about the cause of Epstein’s death in federal lockup in 2019 on his popular podcast, was reportedly unhappy over the public release in July of a 10-hour surveillance video taken outside Epstein’s prison cell at the time of his death. The video had been cited by the FBI and justice department as proof that Epstein died by his own hand and was alone at the time of his death.

Mr. Bongino recently asserted in media interviews that he’d seen the video and evidence and that he’d now concluded that Epstein died by suicide.

“You’re going to see there’s no one there but him. There’s just nobody there. So I say to people, if you have a tip, let us know. But there’s no DNA, there’s no audio, there’s no fingerprints, there’s no suspects, there’s no accomplices,” Mr. Bongino said during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” in May.

However, new disclosures that the video featured a “missing minute” of footage from a 10-hour video have prompted some observers to suspect that the FBI and justice department purposefully altered the video before its release. 

During a White House Cabinet meeting this week, Ms. Bondi explained the time jump. 

“What we learned from the Bureau of Prisons, every night they redo that video. It’s old, like 1999. Every night, the video is reset. Every night should have the same minute missing. So we’re looking for that video to release that as well, showing that a minute is missing every night. That’s it on Epstein,” Ms. Bondi said. 

In addition to Mr. Bongino, FBI director, Kash Patel, also cited the video in recent interviews, saying it was proof that Epstein killed himself.

But the video is now coming under intense scrutiny. In addition to the matter of the missing minute, metadata embedded in the video that was analyzed by Wired magazine and video forensics experts showed “the footage was modified, likely using the professional editing tool Adobe Premiere Pro.” 

“The file appears to have been assembled from at least two source clips, saved multiple times, exported, and then uploaded to the DOJ’s website, where it was presented as ‘raw’ footage,” Wired reported Friday.

An informal but influential advisor to President Trump and antagonist of Ms. Bondi, Laura Loomer, was the first to report, on her X account, that Messrs. Patel and Bongino were “LIVID” at Ms. Bondi over her handling of the memo and “the lack of transparency” from her office. 

Ms. Loomer reported that Mr. Bongino is taking the day off and “there’s now speculation on whether or not he will return to his job at the FBI over his disgust” with Ms. Bondi.

The Axios report quoted an unnamed Trump administration official saying Mr. Bongino was still on the job, but the report also quoted a source “close to” Mr. Bongino saying, “He ain’t coming back.” In an earlier interview, Mr. Bongino said the job was very hard on his mental health. 

Ms. Loomer’s report of the feuding and the day off was confirmed later on Friday by Axios.

Mr. Bongino was reportedly blamed internally for the oversight of the video’s “missing minute,” according to Axios. Tensions exploded during a White House meeting on Wednesday. Mr. Bongino was confronted by Ms. Bondi over a NewsNation article in which a source close to the White House claimed the FBI would have “released every single piece of evidence they could, while protecting victims, months ago” if it had the power to operate independently from the DOJ. Mr. Bongino denied leaking the information to NewsNation, according to reports. 

“Pam said her piece. Dan said his piece. It didn’t end on friendly terms,” a person briefed on the “heated discussion” told Axios. 

Mr. Bongino reportedly left the meeting in a huff.

“The fact is, Dan was for releasing the information with the video and had no problem until he got heat online,” a senior administration official told Axios.

“Bongino found the video with the missing minute. He vouched for it after a ‘thorough review,’ he said, and he thought this would end the matter. When that didn’t work, he lost his mind and ran out of D.C.,” the official said.

In a statement posted on X, the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, said allegations of there being any “daylight” between the justice department and Messrs. Bongino and Patel over the memo’s creation and release were “patently false.”

An FBI representative did not return calls for comment from the Sun.