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Pam Bondi is out as Trump's attorney general

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 https://apnews.com

Pam Bondi is out as Trump's attorney general | AP News
Alanna Durkin Richer, Eric Tucker, Michael Balsamo, Michelle L. Price

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is
out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist
who upended the Justice Department's culture of independence from the
White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved
aggressively to investigate the Republican president's perceived enemies.

The departure followed months of scrutiny over the Justice Department's
handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking
investigation and failed efforts to meet Trump's unwavering demands for
criminal cases against his adversaries. As Trump's own frustrations
mounted, he began privately discussing firing Bondi, people familiar with
the matter say.

"Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully
served as my Attorney General over the past year," Trump said in a
statement. He added, "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."

Bondi came into office 14 months ago pledging that she would not play
politics with the Justice Department. But she quickly set out to do
Trump's bidding, heaping lavish praise at congressional hearings and White
House events, firing prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to the
president and opening investigations into his political foes. The intense
turmoil contributed to the resignations of hundreds of employees, with the
norm-breaking actions stirring concern that he department was being
wielded as a tool to advance Trump's personal and political interests.

"Pam Bondi oversaw an unprecedented weaponization of the Justice
Department that brought our nation's rule of law to its knees," said Sen.
Adam Schiff, a California Democrat.

Bondi's public embrace of the president, however, marked a sharp departure
from her predecessors, who generally took pains to maintain an
arm's-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of
investigations and prosecutions. Bondi postured herself as Trump's chief
supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional
hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice
Department headquarters.

She called for an end to the "weaponization" of law enforcement she said
occurred under the Biden administration, even though Biden's attorney
general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who produced
two cases against Trump, have said they followed the facts, the evidence
and the law in their decision-making. Bondi's critics, meanwhile, said she
was the one who had politicized the agency to do the president's bidding.

"You've turned the People's Department of Justice into Trump's instrument
of revenge," Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House
Judiciary committee, said at a February hearing.

Bondi delivered a combative performance but few substantive answers at
that hearing as she angrily insulted her Democratic questioners with
name-calling, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market -
"The Dow is up over 50,000 right now" -- and openly aligned herself as in
sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments
and investigations.

Even Republicans began to challenge her, with the Republican-led House
Oversight Committee last month issuing a subpoena to her to appear for a
closed-door interview about the Epstein files.

Under Bondi's leadership, the department opened investigations into a
string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve 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 short-lived as they were quickly thrown out by a judge who
ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed.

Trump repeatedly praised and defended Bondi publicly but also showed
flashes of impatience with his attorney general's efforts to meet his
demands to prosecute his rivals. In one extraordinary social media post
last year, Trump called on Bondi to move quickly to prosecute his foes,
including James and Comey, telling her, "We can't delay any longer, it's
killing our reputation and credibility."

Fumbling the Epstein files

She struggled to overcome early stumbles over the Epstein files that
angered conservatives eager for government bombshells about the case,
which has long fascinated conspiracy theorists. She herself had fed the
conspiracy theory machine with a suggestion in a 2025 Fox News Channel
interview that Epstein's "client list" was sitting on her desk for review.
The department later acknowledged that no such document exists.

Bondi was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Epstein files to
conservative influencers at the White House, only for it to be later
revealed that the documents included no new revelations. And despite
promises that more files were going to become public, the Justice
Department in July said no more would be released, prompting Congress to
pass a bill to force the agency to do so.

The Epstein files fumbles led to a stunning public criticism from White
House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Bondi's, who told
Vanity Fair that the attorney general "completely whiffed." The Justice
Department's release of millions of pages of Epstein files did little to
tamp down criticism, prompting a House committee with the support of five
Republicans to subpoena Bondi to answer questions under oath.

Bondi, who defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, was his
second choice to lead the Justice Department, picked for the role after
former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his name from consideration
amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.
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Pam Bondi is out as Trump's attorney general Biased Journalism <biased@nowhere.invalid> - 2026-04-02 13:55 -0700
  Re: Pam Bondi is out as Trump's attorney general Labor Day <Labor_day@test.invalid> - 2026-04-02 13:56 -0700
    Re: Pam Bondi is out as Trump's attorney general "Donald J. Trump" <epstein@maga.gop> - 2026-04-12 16:41 +0000
  Re: Pam Bondi is out as Trump's attorney general "Donald J. Trump" <epstein@maga.gop> - 2026-04-12 16:40 +0000

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