U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Attorney General Pam Bondi was being removed from her post and was being replaced by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in an acting capacity.
Bondi's firing follows what U.S. media said was Trump's mounting frustration with her performance, including her handling of investigative files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump had also reportedly grown frustrated that Bondi was not moving quickly enough to prosecute critics and adversaries who he wanted to face criminal charges.
A report by the The Associated Press (AP) on Thursday said Trump had privately discussed the possibility of replacing Bondi with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.
During her tenure as the top U.S. law enforcement official, Bondi was a combative champion of Trump's agenda and dismantled the Justice Department's longstanding tradition of independence from the White House in its investigations. But it was repeated criticism over the Epstein files, including from Trump allies and some Republican lawmakers, that came to dominate her tenure.
Bondi was accused of covering up or mismanaging the release of records on the DOJ's sex trafficking investigations into Epstein, a financier who cultivated ties with an array of wealthy and powerful figures. The issue created political headaches for Trump and drew renewed scrutiny of his past friendship with Epstein, which he has said ended decades ago.
Her ouster could lead to a shakeup in strategy at the Justice Department and potentially a renewed push to deploy the U.S. legal system against Trump's targets. Bondi is the second senior Trump official to be ousted recently. Trump removed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on March 5 following criticism of her management of the agency and Trump's immigration agenda.
Bondi, a former Republican state attorney general in Florida, said she worked on restoring the Justice Department's focus on violent crime and rebuilding trust with Trump's supporters after federal prosecutors twice criminally charged Trump during his years out of power.
Bondi also faced criticism over the removal of dozens of career prosecutors who worked on investigations disfavored by Trump, with critics accusing her of abandoning the DOJ's traditional focus on even-handed justice.
Bondi defended the rollout of the Epstein files, saying the Trump administration had been more transparent on the issue than previous presidents and that DOJ lawyers worked on a compressed timeline to review reams of material.
During a combative hearing before a House of Representatives panel in January, Bondi responded to criticism with political attacks directed at lawmakers. She refused to apologize or look at Epstein victims and their relatives who attended the proceedings.
Bondi early last year played into fevered speculation about the Epstein files, saying a client list was on her desk for review. But after an initial release included material that had largely already been public, the DOJ and FBI declared in July that the case was closed and that no further disclosures were warranted.
The move prompted an eruption of criticism and eventually a bipartisan law passed in November requiring the Justice Department to release nearly all of its files.
The release of roughly 3 million pages of records still did not quell the controversy, as lawmakers criticized redactions in the files and the disclosure of the identities of some Epstein victims. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Bondi and she was set to testify on April 14.
Under Bondi's leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve (Fed) Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.
The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed. Other politically charged investigations have either been rejected by grand juries or failed to result in criminal charges.
Trump has mentioned other candidates to replace Bondi but has raised Zeldin's name as recently as this week, the AP report said, citing three people familiar with the matter.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, has emerged as a Trump favorite and was praised by the president at an event in February as "our secret weapon."
He is widely viewed as a loyal Trump ally and has been eager to pursue Trump's deregulatory agenda. Like Trump, Zeldin regularly derides Democrats' efforts to fight climate change as the "Green New Scam" and he joined Trump at the White House when the administration revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions a nd slow climate change.