Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks during a roundtable discussion with the Fraternal Order of Police at the White House in Washington, June 5, 2025, along with President Donald Trump.
Kent Nishimura | Reuters
President Trump is reportedly considering Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as Bondi’s permanent replacement.
“Pam Bondi is a great American patriot, a loyal friend, and has faithfully served as my Attorney General this past year,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“Pam made significant contributions in overseeing a major crime crackdown across our nation as homicides plummeted to their lowest levels since 1900,” the president wrote.
“We love Pam, and she is moving on to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector, which will be announced in the near future,” President Trump said.
“Next month, I will work tirelessly to hand over the Attorney General position to the wonderful Todd Blanche, and then move on to a key role in the private sector that I am excited about, where I will continue to fight for President Trump and this administration,” Bondi said in a statement on X.
Her firing comes weeks after President Trump fired another Cabinet member, Kristi Noem, as head of the Department of Homeland Security.
Noem was fired in the wake of backlash over DHS’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement, which led to the shooting deaths of two Americans by federal agents in Minnesota. Noem will be replaced by Markwayne Mullin, who most recently represented Oklahoma in the U.S. Senate.
“Her hourglass is running out of sand,” a source told MS Now earlier Thursday, noting that President Trump has been talking with Republicans and allies in recent days about removing Bondi.
Rep. Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, who passed a bill that would require the Justice Department to release all files related to Epstein at the end of 2025, told XPost, “I support Trump’s firing of Pam Bondi. Do you too?”
“We hope that the next DA’s office will release all Epstein files in accordance with the law and continue investigating, prosecuting and arresting people,” Massey said.
“If reports that Lee Zeldin will replace Pam Bondi as attorney general are true, I welcome it,” South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace said in a post in the X newspaper early Thursday.
“Bondi handled the Epstein file in a terrible manner, making this situation worse than it needed to be for President Trump,” Mace wrote. “We look forward to a new attorney general.”
President Trump, in his second term, has been far more conservative in firing high-level officials than he was in his first term, with a series of sudden firings, including his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche speaks during a press conference to provide the latest information on the Epstein file at the Department of Justice on January 30, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
President Trump fired Sessions in late 2018 after the then-attorney general declined to oversee the Justice Department’s investigation into his contacts with Russians during the 2016 presidential campaign, and the Justice Department appointed special counsel Robert Mueller to lead the investigation.
Epstein files leaked
Mr. Bondi is widely seen as having botched the release of files related to Mr. Epstein, who was a friend of Mr. Trump years ago.
Mr. Bondi initially promised to release Justice Department documents on Mr. Epstein after Mr. Trump took back the White House last year. Mr. Epstein’s criminal activities are of intense interest to the president’s MAGA political base.
She then reneged on that promise by pretending to give social media influencers friendly to President Trump a binder of documents that were found to contain previously released information about Epstein.
Congress then overwhelmingly passed Massey’s bill, which would require the Justice Department to release all files on Epstein by Dec. 19, and President Trump reluctantly signed it after months of opposition.
Although the Justice Department had released many documents by that date, it was unable to release millions more until weeks later, and withheld many more documents since then.
On March 17, the House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to Bondi, forcing him to appear at an April 14 deposition regarding the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein file.
“Pam Bondi and Donald Trump may believe that her removal will prevent her from testifying before the Oversight Committee,” Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., a ranking member of the Oversight Committee, wrote in a post on X on Thursday.
“They are wrong. We look forward to hearing from her under oath,” Garcia said.
Comey and James criminal case
On November 24, Bondi and the Justice Department were embarrassed by the dismissal of two federal criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Mr. Trump had been pressuring Mr. Bondi to file criminal charges against his opponents, Mr. Comey and Mr. James.
Comey was indicted several years ago on charges of false statements and obstruction stemming from his congressional testimony. James was charged with bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution in connection with a mortgage loan he obtained to purchase a home in 2020.
Both men have denied wrongdoing, and prosecutors said the attack was politically motivated.
A federal judge has dismissed the case against Comey and James, finding that the appointment of Lindsey Harrigan, interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia at the time who obtained the indictments against them, was invalid.
Harrigan is one of several top federal prosecutors whose appointments were invalidated during the second Trump administration.
“Pam Bondi’s tenure as the most corrupt attorney general in modern American history is a shameful affront to the Constitution,” House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D.N.Y.) said in a statement Thursday.
“The so-called Attorney General and her pathetic, sycophantic political hack have repeatedly weaponized the Department of Justice and taxpayer dollars to target Donald Trump’s political opponents, trample on the rights of law-abiding Americans, and seek to silence and intimidate those who oppose this administration,” Jeffries said.
“Pam Bondi lied to Congress and the American people. During her tenure, the department lost centuries of professional experience, willfully violated federal law and judicial orders alike, and simultaneously concealed millions of documents related to the Epstein file in a massive cover-up.”
