Donald Trump fires Pam Bondi as U.S. Attorney General
It has been confirmed by several sources that Trump’s Attorney General, Pam Bondi, was fired on Thursday. (U.S. Department of Justice)
President Trump has officially fired Pam Bondi as U.S. Attorney General, ending a 14-month tenure defined by loyalty, blunders, and a Justice Department reshaped around one man's enemies list.
The move was confirmed Thursday by the New York Times, CBS News, CNN, and Fox News. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche steps in as acting AG while Trump eyes EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin as a permanent replacement.
Bondi was Trump's second choice for the job. His first pick, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, withdrew after failing to secure enough GOP Senate support. She was confirmed 54–46 in February 2025, mostly along party lines, after promising lawmakers she would not improperly target people with criminal probes — a promise her tenure immediately called into question.
Under Bondi, the Justice Department pursued criminal investigations into a long list of Trump's perceived political opponents — former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff, Rep. Eric Swalwell, and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook, among others. Most of those cases collapsed. A federal judge dismissed indictments against both Comey and James after finding that the U.S. attorney who brought the charges was unlawfully appointed. Grand juries and judges alike rejected or quashed several other efforts.
She also oversaw mass firings of DOJ officials who had worked on Trump's criminal cases and the January 6th prosecutions, and gutted the department's Civil Rights Division — the unit historically responsible for protecting voting rights, policing discrimination, and enforcing civil rights law. For communities of color, for trans and queer people, for anyone who has looked to federal civil rights enforcement for protection: that gutting was not incidental. It was the assignment.
What ended her
The Epstein files. Bondi told Fox News in February 2025 that a client list was "sitting on my desk right now to review" — but the DOJ later reversed course, saying no such list existed. The resulting backlash from Trump's own base, a bipartisan congressional subpoena, and months of eroding confidence proved fatal to her tenure. Trump told her Wednesday her time was nearing an end; by Thursday afternoon, it was official.
Trump, characteristically, praised the person he just fired. "Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year," he wrote on Truth Social. Sources say she is expected to land in another administration role.
The Justice Department she leaves behind is not the one she inherited. It is smaller, more weaponized, and stripped of key civil rights infrastructure. Todd Blanche — the same deputy AG who some Bondi allies blamed for not pushing retribution cases hard enough — now holds the wheel, at least for now. The next confirmed AG will inherit all of it.
We're watching.
Sources: New York Times, CBS News, CNN, Semafor, CNBC
