US President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi Thursday, announcing on his social media platform that “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.”
Bondi confirmed that she was leaving the administration, while pledging undying loyalty to Trump and promising to fight on his behalf in her new position, although, like Trump, she left the job undefined.
Bondi is the second top-level internal security official dismissed by Trump in a month, following the firing of Kristi Noem as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. The twin actions suggest that the administration is in deep crisis over Trump’s plans to establish himself as a president-dictator, unanswerable to the law, the courts or Congress, let alone the American people.
At least three factors have been cited in accounts of Trump’s growing discontent with Bondi. The first, and most obvious, is her handling of the Epstein scandal, which blew up in Trump’s face and still threatens his political survival.
It was Bondi who claimed a year ago that she had Epstein’s client list “sitting on my desk,” only to backpedal furiously, eventually claiming, along with FBI Director Kash Patel, that there was no client list and that the Epstein case was closed. As victims of Epstein’s sex-trafficking enterprise came forward, however, and the names of billionaire clients began to surface, this cover-up collapsed.
Congress passed a bill requiring the release of all Justice Department files on Epstein, which Trump reluctantly signed into law, but the implementation of the release has been a further scandal, as it was revealed that there were millions of files that had been withheld from Congress, with systematic redaction of Trump’s name and the names of other wealthy and prominent men in Epstein’s circle.
At a hearing in February before the House Judiciary Committee, Bondi responded to questions about Epstein with personal attacks on the representatives asking them. She also refused to turn around and look at a group of Epstein victims who were attending the hearing to press for greater disclosure of the crimes committed by Epstein and his clients, and of the subsequent government cover-up.
Bondi has been subpoenaed by the House committee investigating the Epstein cover-up and is still scheduled to testify on April 14, although she will now do so as a private citizen rather than as the representative of the Trump administration.
The second reason for Bondi’s departure is her failure to weaponize the Justice Department as an instrument of Trump’s vengeance against his most hated enemies, particularly those who investigated his first administration or brought lawsuits or criminal cases against him after he left the White House in January 2021.
It was not for want of trying. Trump demanded that Bondi prosecute former FBI Director James Comey, New York state attorney general Leticia James, Senator Adam Schiff and many others, and Bondi followed his orders. She fired several US attorneys when they balked at filing concocted criminal charges, but grand juries refused to indict Comey and James, although multiple investigations are continuing.
A third reason for Bondi’s firing is the lack of success on the part of the Justice Department in legal cases brought against the illegal and unconstitutional actions taken by the Trump administration since he reentered the White House last year. Many of the budget cuts, mass firings and other attacks on federal workers have been reversed under court order, despite intervention by the Supreme Court to narrow the scope of lower court injunctions.
The new year has brought one legal debacle after another, including the Supreme Court decision overturning Trump’s imposition of massive tariffs on nearly every US trading partner, a court order reversing his takeover of the Kennedy Center, another court order rescinding budget cuts to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service, and an injunction issued by a Republican-appointed judge freezing construction of Trump’s gigantic new ballroom, an “addition” to the White House that would be larger than the entire preexisting structure.
On Wednesday, Trump took Bondi with him as he attended oral arguments before the Supreme Court on his executive order to do away with birthright citizenship, a key provision of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. As it became clear that nearly all the justices were likely to rule his order unconstitutional, as they peppered Justice Department Solicitor General John Sauer with questions and objections to his argument, Trump stormed out, with Bondi in his wake.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will take over as Acting Attorney General. He was Trump’s personal lawyer, serving as the top attorney during Trump’s corruption trial in New York City, when he was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying documents to cover up his payment of hush money to porn actress Stormy Daniels.
Press reports suggested that Lee Zeldin, a former Republican congressman and current administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was a strong possibility as a permanent replacement, but during his first administration, Trump kept “acting” officials in their position for months, even years, in order to avoid Senate hearings and keep these officials on a short leash.
Not that Blanche will need any whipping to do Trump’s bidding. In addition to his record as Trump’s personal lawyer, he acted as the point man in protecting Trump from the Epstein scandal; going to meet Epstein’s collaborator, Ghislaine Maxwell, in prison and obtaining her agreement to exonerate Trump of any involvement in Epstein’s crimes. As a reward, Maxwell was then moved to a minimum-security facility, despite serving a 20-year sentence on child sex trafficking.
Blanche attended the fascistic Conservative Political Action Conference last week, and during one interview, endorsed sending agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to polling stations during this year’s mid-term elections. “Why is there an objection?” he asked, dismissing concerns that the presence of ICE agents might discourage voters from going to the polls.