Trump fires Pam Bondi as attorney general, installs Todd Blanche as acting AG
Washington — President Trump has ousted Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general, a move that comes amid dissatisfaction with how aggressively she pursued Mr. Trump's priorities at the Justice Department, including prosecutions of his perceived political enemies, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The president confirmed the move in a post on Truth Social on Thursday afternoon, saying Bondi will move to a role in the private sector.
"Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year," he wrote. "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, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General."
In a post on X several hours later, Bondi wrote: "Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration."
The president's support for Bondi had been eroding for months, with early missteps in her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files turning into a growing political liability, even among some of Mr. Trump's most loyal supporters, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Behind the scenes, the president increasingly vented frustration with Bondi's performance, particularly her inability to serve as an effective communicator and television surrogate — roles he had expected her to excel at.
In recent days, those concerns reached a breaking point. Bondi made a sustained effort this week to salvage her position, directly appealing to the president himself and his closest advisers to remain in the Cabinet. While the president sent mixed signals in private, he continued to publicly praise her loyalty — a contrast that underscored the uncertainty surrounding her standing.
When news of her firing broke, Bondi was in Florida on a previously scheduled trip.
Two administration officials said the president called Blanche and informed him that he would become acting attorney general. The congratulatory phone call lasted a few minutes, the officials said.
In a post on X, Blanche wrote that Bondi "led this Department with strength and conviction and I'm grateful for her leadership and friendship."
"Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General," he wrote. "We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe."
Advisers close to the president considered the idea of moving Bondi to another senior role in the administration, including director of national intelligence, according to sources familiar with the matter. But Mr. Trump has told staff he wants Tulsi Gabbard to stay in that position.
White House officials have discussed several possibilities for Bondi's permanent replacement, but Lee Zeldin, the Senate-confirmed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is the likely pick, sources said Thursday. Mr. Trump met with Zeldin on Tuesday.
Zeldin, a former congressman, has very little legal experience, and that could cause a crisis of confidence at the department among both career and politically appointed officials. He has worked as a military prosecutor in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General's Corps, but hasn't been a traditional prosecutor.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley said in a statement that the panel stands "ready to advance President Trump's next Attorney General nominee," and thanked Bondi for her service.
"Under her leadership, this Justice Department has been more responsive to my congressional oversight requests than any prior administration I've worked with — Republican or Democrat — and I expect that reputation to continue under Bondi's successor," he said.
Trump and Bondi
The president is fond of Bondi, and expresses personal affection for her in private conversations, multiple sources said earlier this week. She defended Mr. Trump as a private attorney during his first impeachment, and was viewed as a politically loyal ally as the nation's chief law enforcement officer. She openly suggested that attorneys who work in the department work for Mr. Trump — a claim some career lawyers said was at odds with their constitutional duty.
Although Mr. Trump has often expressed his affection for her, he has grown frustrated with the lack of progress in carrying out his agenda. Department officials have pursued a wide variety of criminal investigations into Mr. Trump's perceived political opponents, but most of the cases to date have not proven successful.
A federal judge dismissed indictments last fall against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after finding the U.S. attorney who brought the charges was unlawfully appointed. Probes into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook have not resulted in charges to date.
Efforts to investigate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and six congressional Democrats who posted a video urging military members to defy unlawful orders have also faltered, with a federal judge quashing the subpoenas into Powell and a grand jury unanimously rejecting criminal charges against the lawmakers.
Mr. Trump has felt frustrated that there haven't been more indictments and arrests, sources said, even as efforts to prosecute former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and former CIA Director John Brennan are looming.
Bondi had the U.S. attorney overseeing the Brennan case come to Washington, D.C., to answer questions about why the case hadn't been progressing more quickly, sources said. Jason Quiñones, whose district is in southern Florida, had meetings this week at the Justice Department.
Some of Bondi's allies believe that the lack of prosecutions is attributable to Blanche, who has not pushed them too hard amid political concerns and worries about his future after his Justice Department career.
Recently, the Justice Department hung a large banner outside its headquarters with Mr. Trump's image, in what some current and former DOJ employees saw as a symbol of Bondi's unwavering loyalty to the president and the oversized role that the White House now plays in driving the department's criminal and civil enforcement priorities.
Bondi's tenure
Under Bondi's leadership, the Justice Department has undergone a shift, both in its priorities and in its staffing. Thousands of lawyers and agents have departed due to firings, early retirements, buy-outs and voluntary departures.
Most employees who were fired worked on issues that were disfavored by Mr. Trump and his allies — including prosecutors and FBI agents who were involved in probes into Mr. Trump over his retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
From her first day in office, she set a tone that was different from that of her predecessors.
She issued directives that included everything from threatening to discipline or fire lawyers who refused to sign certain legal briefs, to launching the creation of a Weaponization Working Group. The team was tasked with rooting out alleged wrongdoing by DOJ officials under the Biden administration.
The department also dismantled its Public Integrity Section, which was tasked with prosecuting public corruption, and greatly scaled back its focus on pursuing white-collar crime in favor of making immigration and narco-trafficking the priority.
One of the biggest shifts at the department observed by DOJ employees has been the erosion of traditional guardrails that were installed after the Watergate scandal that were designed to insulate the department's investigations from political interference by the White House.
The breakdown of those traditional norms is largely the driving force behind why some career lawyers at the department left for the private sector.
Shortfalls in both staffing levels and experience in U.S. attorneys' offices nationwide led to government lawyers being held in contempt, and other judges launching contempt inquiries over the Justice Department defying court orders.
"Pam Bondi took a sledgehammer to the Justice Department and its workforce," said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department attorney who founded and leads the nonprofit advocacy group Justice Connection.
"DOJ's independence, integrity, and workforce have degraded more under her leadership than at any other time during the department's 155-year history. What she destroyed in a year could take decades to rebuild," she said.
Bondi was one of just a handful of women to serve as U.S. attorney general, preceded by Janet Reno during the Clinton administration and Loretta Lynch during the Obama administration.
Mr. Trump chose Bondi, who previously served as Florida's attorney general, after former Rep. Matt Gaetz withdrew himself from consideration for the post amid controversy over allegations of drug use and accusations of sexual misconduct involving an underaged girl.
"For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans," Mr. Trump said in his statement announcing Bondi as his nominee. "Not anymore."
He has said she was "tough on crime" during her eight years as Florida's attorney general. He called her "fantastic" after argumentative exchanges in mid-February with Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee about how the administration handled the release of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr. Trump backed her last year even after she was criticized for the handling of its release. Soon after taking office, she publicly pledged to provide flight logs, names of those tied to Epstein and other evidence, only to later shift gears and declare there was no incriminating list of clients.
The controversy led Congress to eventually pass a bill compelling the Justice Department to release all of its investigative files on Epstein, some of which contained salacious and unproven allegations against Mr. Trump.
Last July, Bondi clashed with former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino over the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files review.
The Justice Department has continued to face pressure and criticism over omissions, improper redactions and the inadvertent release of victims' names.
In announcing the final release of Epstein-related records, it was Blanche, not Bondi, who held a news conference with reporters on the department's final rollout of documents.
Bondi has since been subpoenaed to testify before a House panel on April 14, and has sought to avoid it by voluntarily sitting down with lawmakers to answer any of their questions.
Mr. Trump repeatedly defended Bondi, dismissing reporters' questions by saying she was doing a "very good job."
He also pressed the department to focus its attention on other key areas, including illegal immigration, countering progressive movements such as antifa and combatting fraud against the government — all issues that Bondi has prioritized during her tenure.
Last year, she ordered the FBI to compile a list of nonprofit groups that might be suspected of funding domestic terrorism, and the FBI and the IRS Criminal Investigation are now partnering up to carry out that directive.
The department has also rigorously defended the Trump administration's mass deportation and detention policies.
Two federal appellate courts in recent weeks have supported the administration's position that immigrants who came into the country without admission and inspection can be detained without bond, even if they have been living here for years.
Bondi was widely liked among her staff and other political appointees in the administration. A dog lover, she has championed animal welfare issues and several of her close staff have also recently adopted dogs rescued from a breeder in a criminal case in Texas.
Among career staff, however, she was viewed as out of touch, tone-deaf and politically loyal to the president alone.
On the day staff at the Public Integrity Section learned their office would be gutted, for instance, the only communication they received from Bondi's office was a memo decrying the use of paper straws and directing all employees to stop using them.