President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, ending her tenure at the Department of Justice after more than a year of mounting frustrations over her handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s files and the department’s failure to successfully prosecute several of the president’s political rivals.
Trump announced the ouster in a post on Truth Social, offering praise while confirming Bondi’s departure from the administration.
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “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, a former personal attorney to the president, will step in as acting attorney general. Trump is also reportedly considering Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin as a permanent replacement.
Central to Bondi’s downfall was the Justice Department’s mishandling of files related to the investigation of the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Early in her tenure, Bondi told Fox News that she had Epstein’s client list “sitting on my desk right now to review.” Months later, the DOJ and FBI said no such client list existed and that no additional Epstein files would be made public.
The reversal touched off a political firestorm and ultimately led Congress to pass the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which forced the DOJ to make all Epstein files in its possession public. The department failed to meet the Act’s 30-day deadline to release the materials, fueling frustrations on Capitol Hill, before eventually releasing millions of pages of files.
Some in Trump’s inner circle had long been upset over Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files, believing her public statements helped drive the impression that the administration was inappropriately holding back materials from public view.
The House Oversight Committee subpoenaed Bondi to testify about the matter under oath, with a deposition scheduled for April 14. Rep. Robert Garcia, a California Democrat and the Oversight panel’s ranking member, said in a post on Thursday that Bondi and Trump may think her firing gets her out of testifying. “They are wrong — and we look forward to hearing from her under oath,” Garcia said.
Trump had also expressed frustration with what he viewed as a lack of aggressiveness in Bondi’s DOJ in pursuing investigations and prosecutions of his political opponents, pressing for action in cases involving former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James — efforts that faltered.
Bondi is the second member of Trump’s cabinet to be forced out, following the president’s firing of Kristi Noem as Secretary of Homeland Security approximately one month ago.
