President Donald Trump has been talking about firing Attorney General Pam Bondi, and now it seems he has. Multiple unnamed “sources familiar with the matter” have reported to various outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, and FOX, that Trump fired Bondi and that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will take over in the short term and that EPA Director Lee Zeldin is Trump’s current leading candidate for a permanent replacement.
While the news broke Thursday, April 2, at least one of FOX’s sources claimed Bondi lost her job during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday. By the time Trump took the podium Wednesday night for his remarks, according to this individual, he had already fired her and she was already on the way home to Florida.
Trump had grown “more and more frustrated” with Bondi, another person “familiar with White House deliberations” told NBC News Thursday morning, as she hasn’t “executed his vision” in the ways he wanted. “Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and is doing a good job,” the president said in an official comment to the press Wednesday. The Justice Department has yet to reply publicly to any media questions.
But Trump did take to Truth Social Thursday afternoon to announce and somewhat explain his action:
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year. Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across the Country, with Murders plummeting to their lowest level since 1990. We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future, and our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP”
So it seems, once again, the president is presenting the firing of an appointee as a reassignment. Since the Jeffrey Epstein files debacle began, the general perception has been that Bondi is focused on the wrong things and unable to get the DOJ in line with the president’s goals.
