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Within days of rumors circulating that President Donald Trump was considering firing his attorney general, on Thursday the news became official. As is standard fare for this administration, Trump announced the staffing change on Truth Social: Pam Bondi is out as attorney general. Her deputy, Todd Blanche, is stepping up as acting AG, while Bondi will transition to a yet-to-be-announced private-sector role. Bondi is now the second Trump Cabinet official to be shown the door, after Kristi Noem was pushed out as homeland security secretary almost exactly one month ago.
Even within the standards of Trump’s chaos-fueled second term, Bondi never quite got her footing during her 14-month tenure at the Justice Department. It was largely agreed across the political spectrum that she botched the release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, an issue of critical importance to the president’s far-right base; failed in her transparently political efforts to prosecute her boss’s enemies New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey; and had made embarrassing missteps in numerous federal cases with one DOJ prosecutor telling a judge, “This job sucks.” Oh, and her handpicked top prosecutor for New Jersey, Alina Habba, was consistently disqualified from serving.
The New York Times reported that Bondi had been on thin ice with Trump for some time now, though the president overall liked her, particularly her steadfast loyalty, which as of today he has not repaid in kind. That loyalty has been obvious, as Bondi put on quite a performance in February during a congressional hearing over her department’s handling of the Epstein files. She frequently yelled at lawmakers who questioned her, for instance calling Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin a “washed-up loser lawyer!” She also clashed with Republican Rep. Thomas Massie—he led the charge on releasing the Epstein files—telling the room, “This guy has Trump derangement syndrome, he needs to—you’re a failed politician.” Her response to questions about the DOJ’s failure to prosecute Epstein’s accomplices with the statement “the Dow is over $50,000 right now” became an immediate punch line. Even if it was an echo of her boss, the fact that the Dow has sunk nearly 8 percent and $4,000 since she gave that testimony gave the comments highly meme-able staying power in a very embarrassing way.
In another particularly grotesque moment of that hearing, Bondi refused to acknowledge the row of Epstein’s survivors sitting behind her. Footage of Bondi looking down at her papers, while the survivors stood with their hands raised, took off online.
Bondi also began losing congressional Republicans’s support over the Epstein files. When five Republicans voted with Democrats to subpoena the attorney general, Bondi was reportedly “blindsided.” Rep. Nancy Mace, one of those five Republicans, insisted that despite losing her job, Bondi is still required to appear at a House Oversight Committee hearing on April 14.
Not only did Bondi oversee a historic politicization of the Justice Department, though, she also drastically whittled down its workforce. It’s estimated that half of the department’s attorneys—roughly 5,500—were either fired or resigned since she became attorney general. Prosecutors who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into Trump were fired, while some federal prosecutors quit over how the Justice Department was handling the killings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota.
Despite Bondi’s best efforts to appease Trump, she ultimately failed to lock in her status within his Cabinet. It’s not clear who will replace her, though Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin is rumored to be in the running. Whoever becomes the new U.S. attorney general will have their work cut out for them, facing a long list of demands from a retributive boss and his far-right base.
One bit of advice to whoever gets the job: Maybe don’t spend so much time talking about the Dow.