President Donald Trump on Thursday fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying in a social media post she would be leaving the Justice Department for an unidentified “much needed and important new job in the private sector.” Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, his former criminal defense lawyer, would serve as acting attorney general.
Who said what
Bondi’s ouster ends a “tumultuous 14-month tenure” that was largely “defined by her unyielding willingness to respond to Trump’s demands and desire to reshape the Justice Department in his image,” The Washington Post said. She “oversaw the hollowing out” of the department by “firing scores of experienced prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to the president.” Bondi also “set out to do Trump’s bidding” by “opening investigations into his political foes,” The Associated Press said.
But Trump became increasingly “incensed that she had not successfully prosecuted a number of his political enemies,” The Wall Street Journal said, and “frustrated she didn’t do more to contain fallout” from the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking files. “People are going to say it’s Epstein,” a Trump confidante told Axios. But “this was all about his enemies list, and Pam wasn’t getting the indictments.” Trump had “many good reasons” to fire Bondi, Jeffrey Toobin said in an op-ed for The New York Times. “Her failure to serve his need for revenge against his enemies” is the “single bad one.”
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Bondi is expected to leave in 45 days, Axios said. EPA chief Lee Zeldin and Blanche are widely reported to be in the running to replace her. Bondi “did almost everything Donald Trump asked” and “it wasn’t enough,” Politico said, so whoever succeeds her faces a “crucial” question: “How far will you go to avoid Bondi’s fate?”
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
