Trump Fires Attorney General Pam Bondi After 14 Turbulent Months

President Trump ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday, ending a tenure defined less by legal victories than by a spectacular mishandling of Justice Department files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump framed the exit diplomatically on Truth Social, writing that Bondi "faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year" and would be "transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector." Two senior officials confirmed to NBC News she was fired.

The collapse of Trump's confidence in Bondi traced back largely to a single February 2025 Fox News interview in which she claimed an Epstein "client list" was "sitting on my desk right now to review." The Department of Justice later asserted no such list existed. The damage compounded when a high-profile document release Bondi subsequently oversaw consisted largely of previously public material and inadvertently exposed the identities of Epstein's victims. By the time Republicans on the House Oversight Committee agreed to subpoena her over her "possible mismanagement" of the files, even White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had acknowledged to Vanity Fair that Bondi had "completely whiffed" on the matter. Bondi had been scheduled to sit for a congressional deposition later this month.

Trump had grown "more and more frustrated" with Bondi in recent weeks, according to sources familiar with White House deliberations. Beyond the Epstein fiasco, he was vexed by what he viewed as her failure as a television communicator and her inability to prosecute enough of his political opponents, a role he had explicitly expected her to fill. His frustration broke through when he published, then deleted, a Truth Social post addressed directly: "Pam: I have..." The firing was first announced publicly by Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy, who cited a phone call with Trump, seconds before Trump's official Truth Social post went live. Semafor had reported earlier in the day that Trump personally told Bondi on Wednesday her time as AG was "nearing an end," with CNN describing that conversation as "tough."

Notably, Bondi's DOJ did pursue several of Trump's perceived political enemies during her tenure, opening probes and bringing criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the 40th to hold that office, will serve as acting attorney general. Blanche spent more than 15 years as a federal prosecutor, including at the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, before moving into private practice and ultimately serving as Trump's personal criminal defense attorney in three criminal cases in 2023 and 2024, including the Manhattan hush money trial in which Trump was convicted in May 2024. Blanche pledged to "continue backing the blue, enforcing the law" in a social media post Thursday.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is understood to be the leading candidate for the permanent role, with White House officials describing him as the "likely pick." Trump met with Zeldin on Tuesday, two days before Bondi's ouster. Zeldin's legal experience is limited to service as a military prosecutor in the Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, and legal observers have warned his appointment could trigger a "crisis of confidence" inside the department. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) welcomed the prospect, writing on X that "Bondi handled the Epstein Files in a terrible manner."

Bondi's firing is the second high-profile Cabinet dismissal of Trump's second term, coming exactly four weeks after he ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and replaced her with former Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. The move carries an unmistakable echo of Trump's first term, when he fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November 2018 after Sessions recused himself from the DOJ's investigation into Russian contacts with his 2016 campaign, a decision that led directly to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller.