President Donald Trump has told Attorney General Pam Bondi that her tenure leading the Justice Department is over, ousting one of his most loyal political defenders amid mounting frustration inside the White House.
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Trump made the decision official on Thursday afternoon, CNN reports. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will step into the role temporarily a source told the outlet.
Rumors about a potential ouster were first reported by Semafor, which said Trump informed Bondi that her time in the role was almost up, following weeks of internal dissatisfaction with her leadership.
According to that report, Trump’s frustration has centered on Bondi’s handling of politically sensitive matters, including the Justice Department’s release of files tied to Jeffrey Epstein, as well as a broader belief that she has not pursued investigations into his perceived adversaries with enough urgency.
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Trump has yet to publicly name a successor. But Bondi was told her time in the role is limited, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The rupture is striking given Bondi’s history as one of Trump’s most reliable allies. A former Florida attorney general, she rose to prominence defending him during his first impeachment trial and was later elevated to lead the Justice Department in his second term, a choice widely seen as prioritizing personal loyalty over institutional independence.
That loyalty often manifested in combative terms. In February, The Advocate reported that during a House Judiciary Committee hearing that devolved into open confrontation, Bondi repeatedly deflected lawmakers’ questions about the Epstein files and escalated tensions with personal attacks. At one point, she suggested that out Vermont Rep. Becca Balint, who is Jewish, was contributing to what Bondi described as an “anti-Semitic culture,” prompting Balint to fire back and leave the room.
The hearing, which stretched for hours, was marked by interruptions, partisan clashes, and accusations that Bondi was stonewalling rather than providing substantive answers.
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Those concerns extend back well before her time in Washington. As Florida’s attorney general, Bondi led the state’s defense of a constitutional ban on marriage equality, continuing to fight for the policy even as federal courts moved to strike down similar laws nationwide. Her office argued in court filings that recognizing same-sex marriages could harm the state, and she supported efforts to uphold restrictions on adoption by same-sex couples.
Reporting by The New York Times indicates that Trump’s dissatisfaction has been building over time, not emerging solely from the Epstein controversy. The Times reports that he has increasingly questioned Bondi’s performance in private and discussed replacing her in recent days.
Bondi’s standing eroded across multiple fronts. Her handling of the Epstein files drew bipartisan criticism after she initially suggested major revelations, only to later acknowledge that the material contained little new information.
That episode was compounded by the Justice Department’s uneven rollout of millions of pages of Epstein-related documents, which lawmakers said was mishandled and required congressional intervention to force broader disclosure. The controversy became a persistent liability, raising questions about competence and transparency.
But those missteps were only part of the problem. Trump has also grown “incredibly dissatisfied,” according to reporting cited by MS NOW, with what he sees as the slow pace of efforts targeting his political opponents, even as the Justice Department under Bondi has taken extraordinary steps to align with White House priorities.
Those efforts have, at times, run into legal limits. Some investigations pursued under that framework have faced skepticism from judges or failed to advance before grand juries, highlighting the constraints that still shape federal prosecutions despite political pressure. The gap between Trump’s expectations and those institutional realities appears to have deepened the rift.
Bondi's ouster marks the second major Cabinet-level shakeup of Trump’s second term. In March, Trump removed Kristi Noem from her post as Secretary of Homeland Security following mounting criticism over her leadership, including contentious congressional hearings and scrutiny of department policies.
Among the names under consideration to replace her is Lee Zeldin, who currently serves as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and was confirmed to the post in January 2025. A former Republican congressman from New York and a close Trump ally, Zeldin has overseen an aggressive deregulatory agenda at the agency aligned with the president’s broader policy goals.
