WASHINGTON — President Trump fired Pam Bondi as attorney general on Thursday, ending a tumultuous 14-month tenure marked by mass firings of career prosecutors, a bungled handling of Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation and a string of investigations into the president’s political foes, including prominent California Democrats.
Trump announced the ouster of the former Florida attorney general in a Truth Social post, praising her as a “Great American Patriot.” It caps months of controversy surrounding Bondi’s leadership, which critics called an unprecedented assault on the independence of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche, Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney, will serve as acting attorney general until a permanent replacement is named. Blanche, like Bondi, has been a loyal backer of Trump while at the Justice Department.
Blanche has denounced past criminal cases against Trump as baseless and politically motivated, even while championing new criminal cases against Trump’s own political opponents. He has also echoed Trump’s sharp criticisms of the federal judiciary, declaring the Justice Department is at “war” with a cadre of “rogue activist judges.”
Bondi’s dismissal quickly drew sharp reactions from California Democrats, including Reps. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) and Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), two lawmakers who put immense legislative pressure on Bondi to release the Epstein files and accused her of overseeing a “cover-up.”
In separate statements, Garcia and Khanna said that Bondi remains legally obligated to appear before the House Oversight Committee and testify under oath about what they called a “botched” handling of the Epstein investigation.
“Even though she was fired, she must still answer to Congress about the remaining documents, why we have no new prosecutions, and why she participated in a cover-up,” Khanna said.
News outlets pointed to multiple reasons for Trump’s decision to fire Bondi.
Some reported that it had to do with Trump’s ire over Bondi’s handling of the Epstein files. After Congress passed a law forcing their release, Bondi presided over that release — amid criticisms she was slow-walking it, withholding certain records and overly redacting others.
Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, wrote on X that Bondi and Trump “may think her firing gets her out of testifying to the Oversight Committee,” which she is meant to do April 14, but they “are wrong — and we look forward to hearing from her under oath.”
However, that was in question.
“Since Pam Bondi is no longer attorney general, Chairman Comer will speak with Republican members and the Department of Justice about the status of the deposition subpoena and confer on next steps,” a committee spokeswoman said Thursday, referring to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.).
The announcement led some to question whether Bondi’s ouster was in part an effort by the White House to keep her from testifying.
Others reported Trump was peeved at her for tipping off Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) that the Justice Department was considering releasing documents from a years-old investigation into his relationship with a suspected Chinese intelligence operative named Christine Fang, or Fang Fang.
Swalwell, a leading California gubernatorial candidate, was not the target of that investigation and cut ties with Fang in 2015 after U.S. intelligence officials briefed him and other members of Congress about Chinese efforts to infiltrate Congress. Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing in the matter, and a release of records from that investigation now would be unusual.
Still other outlets reported that a key factor in Trump’s decision to fire Bondi was her failure to secure criminal indictments and convictions against various Trump political enemies who he has accused with little evidence of wrongdoing and has publicly pushed Bondi and other Justice Department officials to prosecute.
One of those targets is Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), whom Trump accused of committing mortgage fraud by characterizing multiple homes as his primary residence in years-old mortgage documents.
Schiff has denied any wrongdoing and accused Trump of targeting him for political reasons. Justice Department officials have also declined to bring any criminal charges against Schiff to date.
It’s unclear whether that would change under new leadership. Blanche has reportedly been involved in overseeing the Schiff investigation and butted heads with former Justice official Ed Martin, who had zealously investigated Schiff before being removed.
In an X post on Thursday, Schiff cheered Bondi’s ouster but said that she was “merely a symptom of Donald Trump’s chronic allergy to our nation’s laws,” that her being tossed aside “does not mitigate the need for her to answer for her conduct” as attorney general, and that Blanche “should expect to receive the same scrutiny.”
“Pam Bondi oversaw an unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department that brought our nation’s rule of law to its knees,” Schiff wrote. “Countless and baseless political investigations, hundreds of career law enforcement professionals purged, a massive cover-up of the Epstein files, and a wholesale effort to turn the department into a criminal law firm representing the person of the president instead of the American people.”
Sen. Alex Padilla, a Los Angeles Democrat, said “good riddance” to Bondi in a post on X.
“Bondi dodged transparency on the Epstein files, tried to go after voter rolls to undermine elections, and weaponized the Justice Department against Trump’s enemies,” Padilla said. “Americans deserve accountability, not cover-ups and corruption.”
It was unclear Thursday how long Trump may leave Blanche in the top post. As deputy attorney general, he had a hand in many of the decisions as to the day-to-day operations of the department under Bondi — including on the handling of the Epstein files.
Blanche personally interviewed Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, in a federal prison in Florida, where she was serving a 20-year term for helping Epstein sexually abuse young girls. During that interview, Maxwell said she never witnessed Trump in any “inappropriate setting.”
Blanche’s decision to personally interview Maxwell was highly unusual, given how high ranking he was in the Justice Department.
Within days of the interview, which was perceived in part as a ploy for clemency by Maxwell, she was moved to a minimum-security camp in Texas.
