Trump says Pam Bondi, a loyalist who oversaw Justice Department upheaval, is out as attorney general

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump said Thurs­day that Pam Bon­di is out as his at­tor­ney gen­er­al, end­ing the con­tentious tenure of a loy­al­ist who up­end­ed the Jus­tice De­part­ment’s cul­ture of in­de­pen­dence from the White House, over­saw large-scale fir­ings of ca­reer em­ploy­ees and moved ag­gres­sive­ly to in­ves­ti­gate the Re­pub­li­can pres­i­dent’s per­ceived en­e­mies.

The an­nounce­ment fol­lows months of scruti­ny over the Jus­tice De­part­ment’s han­dling of files re­lat­ed to Jef­frey Ep­stein’s sex traf­fick­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion that made Bon­di the tar­get of an­gry con­ser­v­a­tives even with her close re­la­tion­ship with Trump. She al­so strug­gled to sat­is­fy Trump’s de­mands to pros­e­cute his po­lit­i­cal ri­vals, with mul­ti­ple in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­ject­ed by judges or grand ju­ries or yet to pro­duce charges.

Trump named Deputy At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Todd Blanche as the act­ing at­tor­ney gen­er­al, though three peo­ple fa­mil­iar with the mat­ter have said he has pri­vate­ly dis­cussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency, as a per­ma­nent pick.

Bon­di, a for­mer Flori­da at­tor­ney gen­er­al, came in­to of­fice last year pledg­ing that she would not play pol­i­tics with the Jus­tice De­part­ment, but she quick­ly start­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions of Trump foes, spark­ing an out­cry that the law en­force­ment agency was be­ing wield­ed as a tool of re­venge to ad­vance the pres­i­dent’s po­lit­i­cal and per­son­al agen­da.

She ush­ered in a pe­ri­od of in­tense tur­moil at the de­part­ment that in­clud­ed the fir­ings of ca­reer pros­e­cu­tors deemed in­suf­fi­cient­ly loy­al to Trump and the res­ig­na­tions of hun­dreds of oth­er em­ploy­ees. Her de­par­ture con­tin­ues a trend of Jus­tice De­part­ment up­heaval that has de­fined Trump’s pres­i­den­cy as mul­ti­ple at­tor­neys gen­er­al across his two terms have ei­ther been pushed out or re­signed af­ter prov­ing un­will­ing or un­able to meet his de­mands for the po­si­tion.

Bon­di re­ject­ed ac­cu­sa­tions that she politi­cized the Jus­tice De­part­ment and said her mis­sion was to re­store the in­sti­tu­tion’s cred­i­bil­i­ty af­ter over­reach by Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic ad­min­is­tra­tion with two fed­er­al crim­i­nal cas­es against Trump. Bon­di’s de­fend­ers have said she worked to re­fo­cus the de­part­ment to bet­ter tack­le il­le­gal im­mi­gra­tion and vi­o­lent crime and brought much-need­ed change to an agency they be­lieve un­fair­ly tar­get­ed con­ser­v­a­tives.

Em­brac­ing, sup­port­ing and pro­tect­ing the pres­i­dent

Bon­di’s pub­lic em­brace of the pres­i­dent, how­ev­er, marked a sharp de­par­ture from her pre­de­ces­sors, who gen­er­al­ly took pains to main­tain an arm’s-length dis­tance from the White House to pro­tect the im­par­tial­i­ty of in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions. Bon­di pos­tured her­self as Trump’s chief sup­port­er and pro­tec­tor, prais­ing and de­fend­ing him in con­gres­sion­al hear­ings and plac­ing a ban­ner with his face on the ex­te­ri­or of Jus­tice De­part­ment head­quar­ters.

She called for an end to the “weaponiza­tion” of law en­force­ment she said oc­curred un­der the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion, even though Biden’s at­tor­ney gen­er­al, Mer­rick Gar­land, and Jack Smith, the spe­cial coun­sel who pro­duced two cas­es against Trump, have said they fol­lowed the facts, the ev­i­dence and the law in their de­ci­sion-mak­ing. Bon­di’s crit­ics, mean­while, said she was the one who had politi­cized the agency to do the pres­i­dent’s bid­ding.

“You’ve turned the Peo­ple’s De­part­ment of Jus­tice in­to Trump’s in­stru­ment of re­venge,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Mary­land, the top De­mo­c­rat on the House Ju­di­cia­ry com­mit­tee, said at a Feb­ru­ary hear­ing.

Bon­di de­liv­ered a com­bat­ive per­for­mance but few sub­stan­tive an­swers at that hear­ing as she an­gri­ly in­sult­ed her De­mo­c­ra­t­ic ques­tion­ers with name-call­ing, praised Trump over the per­for­mance of the stock mar­ket — “The Dow is up over 50,000 right now” —- and open­ly aligned her­self as in sync with a pres­i­dent whom she paint­ed as a vic­tim of past im­peach­ments and in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Even Re­pub­li­cans be­gan to chal­lenge her, with the Re­pub­li­can-led House Over­sight Com­mit­tee last month is­su­ing a sub­poe­na to her to ap­pear for a closed-door in­ter­view about the Ep­stein files.

Un­der Bon­di’s lead­er­ship, the de­part­ment opened in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to a string of Trump foes, in­clud­ing Fed­er­al Re­serve Chair Jerome Pow­ell, New York At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Leti­tia James, for­mer FBI Di­rec­tor James Comey and for­mer CIA Di­rec­tor John Bren­nan. The high-pro­file pros­e­cu­tions of Comey and James were short-lived as they were quick­ly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the pros­e­cu­tor who brought the cas­es was il­le­gal­ly ap­point­ed.

Trump re­peat­ed­ly pub­licly praised and de­fend­ed Bon­di but al­so showed flash­es of im­pa­tience with his at­tor­ney gen­er­al’s ef­forts to meet his de­mands to pros­e­cute his ri­vals. In one ex­tra­or­di­nary so­cial me­dia post last year, Trump called on Bon­di to move quick­ly to pros­e­cute his foes, in­clud­ing James and Comey, telling her: “We can’t de­lay any longer, it’s killing our rep­u­ta­tion and cred­i­bil­i­ty.”

Bon­di over­saw the ex­o­dus of thou­sands of ca­reer em­ploy­ees — both through fir­ings and vol­un­tary de­par­tures — in­clud­ing lawyers who pros­e­cut­ed vi­o­lent at­tacks on po­lice at the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021; en­vi­ron­men­tal, civ­il rights and ethics en­forcers; coun­tert­er­ror­ism pros­e­cu­tors; and oth­ers.

Fum­bling the Ep­stein files

She strug­gled to over­come ear­ly stum­bles over the Ep­stein files that an­gered con­ser­v­a­tives ea­ger for gov­ern­ment bomb­shells about the case, which has long fas­ci­nat­ed con­spir­a­cy the­o­rists. She her­self had fed the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry ma­chine with a sug­ges­tion in a 2025 Fox News Chan­nel in­ter­view that Ep­stein’s “client list” was sit­ting on her desk for re­view. The de­part­ment lat­er ac­knowl­edged that no such doc­u­ment ex­ists.

Bon­di was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Ep­stein files to con­ser­v­a­tive in­flu­encers at the White House on­ly for it to be lat­er re­vealed that the doc­u­ments in­clud­ed no new rev­e­la­tions. And de­spite promis­es that more files were go­ing to be­come pub­lic, the Jus­tice De­part­ment in Ju­ly said no more would be re­leased, prompt­ing Con­gress to pass a bill to force the agency to do so.

The Ep­stein files fum­bles led to a stun­ning pub­lic crit­i­cism from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Bon­di’s, who told Van­i­ty Fair that the at­tor­ney gen­er­al “com­plete­ly whiffed.” The Jus­tice De­part­ment’s re­lease of mil­lions of pages of Ep­stein files did lit­tle to tamp down crit­i­cism, prompt­ing a House com­mit­tee with the sup­port of five Re­pub­li­cans to sub­poe­na Bon­di to an­swer ques­tions un­der oath.

Bon­di, who de­fend­ed Trump dur­ing his first im­peach­ment tri­al, was his sec­ond choice to lead the Jus­tice De­part­ment, picked for the role af­ter for­mer Rep. Matt Gaetz of Flori­da with­drew his name from con­sid­er­a­tion amid scruti­ny over sex traf­fick­ing al­le­ga­tions.

WASH­ING­TON (AP)