Trump Fires Attorney General Pam Bondi, Names Todd Blanche Acting

President Trump on Thursday removed Pam Bondi as attorney general, ending a tenure that was marked by turmoil inside the Justice Department and by criticism from both parties over how she handled the Jeffrey Epstein files. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general, CBS News reported.

Mr. Trump called Bondi “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend” and said she would move to a job in the private sector, according to CBS News. Mr. Trump’s announcement, as CBS News quoted it, gave no reason for the change. Reporting from the Associated Press, carried by PBS News, and from CBS News describes a president frustrated on two fronts: the Epstein case, which angered his own supporters, and what he saw as a lack of aggressiveness in pursuing his political adversaries.

On the Epstein files, Bondi suggested in a 2025 Fox News interview that a “client list” was on her desk, and the department later said no such document exists, AP reported. The department released millions of pages of records, which did little to quiet the criticism. A House committee, with the support of five Republicans, voted to subpoena her to answer questions under oath. White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Bondi’s, told Vanity Fair that she had “completely whiffed” on the matter, AP reported. A former federal prosecutor, Ron Safer, told CBS News Chicago: “We’ll never know for sure, but certainly the Epstein files factored into it.”

The prosecutions Mr. Trump wanted also ran into trouble. Bondi opened investigations of several of his critics, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former CIA Director John Brennan and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, AP reported. A judge threw out the cases against Comey and James after ruling that the prosecutor who brought them was illegally appointed, according to AP, and CBS News reported that both cases were dismissed. CBS News reported that sources said the president was dissatisfied with how hard she pushed his priorities, including those cases.

Her tenure also reshaped the department’s ranks. AP reported that thousands of career employees, including prosecutors who handled January 6 cases, were fired or left during her time in office. Safer told CBS News Chicago that the U.S. attorney’s office there has seen “an exodus of talent” and that every chief, including the head of the criminal division, has left in the past six months, by his account.

Her defenders see a different record. AP noted that supporters say she refocused the department on illegal immigration and violent crime and carried out the president’s agenda, while critics, including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said at a February hearing that she had turned the department into “Trump’s instrument of revenge.”

A former Florida attorney general, Bondi took office in 2025 pledging not to play politics with the department, AP reported. She had defended Mr. Trump during his first impeachment and became his choice for the post only after Matt Gaetz withdrew.

Blanche’s acting role leaves open who will lead the department permanently, and the choice is likely to draw questions about the Epstein investigation and the independence of prosecutors.