Pam Bondi Ousted as Trump's Attorney General
· Time
President Donald Trump on Thursday removed Pam Bondi as attorney general, making her the second cabinet official he’s ousted in the past month and abruptly ending a turbulent tenure that had come to define his expansive use of the Justice Department to pursue political adversaries.
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“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, praising her record on reducing crime as the nation's top law enforcement official. “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was formerly Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, will serve as acting attorney general for now, Trump said. One possible successor is Lee Zeldin, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and a close political ally of the President.
The move comes as Trump had grown increasingly irritated with Bondi’s inability to deliver on one of his central demands: swift prosecutions of the political figures he has long cast as enemies. Trump, who has repeatedly sought to bend the Justice Department to his will, had pressed Bondi to move faster and more aggressively, even as career prosecutors warned that some of the cases lacked sufficient evidence.
His impatience burst into public view last fall, when he addressed her directly in a social media post that appeared to be intended as a private message. “Pam,” he wrote in September, “I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done,’” referencing his desire for action in cases involving former FBI director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Senator Adam Schiff.
“We can’t delay any longer,” he wrote. “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who served as Trump’s personal lawyer during his first impeachment trial in 2020 and helped advance his post-election challenges, responded by reshaping the department’s leadership and pursuing a series of high-profile investigations aligned with the President’s wishes. Under her watch, the Justice Department brought cases against Comey and James but those prosecutions quickly collapsed in court after a judge found that the prosecutor had been improperly appointed.
Critics said that Bondi presided over a Justice Department that steadily shed its traditional independence. Early in her term, veteran prosecutors departed in large numbers, particularly in public corruption and national security divisions, as internal dissent over politically driven investigations grew.
“No one can be loyal enough. No one can punish Trump’s enemies fast enough," said Lisa Gilbert, co-President of the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. "Pam Bondi took the DOJ in a lawless, non-independent, shameful direction, and the institution of justice has suffered as a result.”
Bondi’s standing was further weakened by her clumsy handling of records related to the financier Jeffrey Epstein, a political albatross for which Trump believed he was being unfairly maligned. Last February, she suggested in a television interview that she had a long-rumored Epstein “client list,” only to later clarify that no such list existed. Days later, she touted a highly publicized release of documents that turned out to consist largely of previously public material. The series of missteps deepened suspicion among some Trump’s supporters and amplified scrutiny from Congress onto what the Administration was shielding from public view, eventually compelling Congress to take the rare step of passing a bill to force the release of most of the files.
Lawmakers in the House, including some Republicans, have subpoenaed Bondi to testify under oath about the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein matter under her leadership. A deposition is scheduled for later this month, and she had previously indicated she would comply. Some Democrats in Congress asserted Thursday that Bondi would still be required to attend.
For all her efforts to align the department with Trump’s priorities, Bondi’s tenure underscored the risks of attempting to satisfy a President who has long viewed the machinery of federal law enforcement as a tool for personal and political redress. At her confirmation hearing in January, Democrats repeatedly pressed her on whether she can be trusted as the nation’s top law enforcement official to safeguard the independence of the Department of Justice and uphold the rule of law if Trump were to initiate politically motivated investigations. “The partisanship, the weaponization, will be gone,” Bondi said at the time.
Despite their tensions, Bondi remained publicly at the President’s side in recent days, traveling with him to the Supreme Court for Wednesday’s hearing on birthright citizenship and attending his prime-time address to the nation at the White House later that night.
Her removal comes just weeks after Trump ousted Kristi Noem as secretary of homeland security, replacing her with Markwayne Mullin.
Taken together, the two firings have marked a shift from Trump’s earlier reluctance to fire cabinet members in the middle of his presidency, particularly after his first term was marred by frequent turnover.