President Donald Trump reportedly told his outgoing attorney general, Pam Bondi, that he would be replacing her en route to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday morning, saying simply, “I think it’s time.”
The pair were riding in “The Beast,” the presidential limousine, to watch the nation’s highest court hear arguments on the question of birthright citizenship, when Trump made his feelings clear, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The duo then had to sit side by side at the hearing until the president moved away, after which, the report states, she asked Trump to keep her in post until the summer. He refused.
The president duly announced Bondi’s departure on Truth Social Thursday, saying she would be relocating to a “much needed and important new job in the private sector” and praising her as “a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend.”
In the process, Bondi became the second Cabinet official to be ousted during Trump’s second term, following the removal of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem last month.
She, in turn, thanked the president for “the honor of a lifetime” in her own message on X (Twitter) and detailed what she considered to be her accomplishments in the role.
Bondi will serve until the end of the month and then be replaced by her deputy, Todd Blanche, in an acting capacity.
Her time leading the Department of Justice was marred by controversy, with the president allegedly unhappy about her failure to prosecute his political enemies and over the botched handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, which dogged him throughout his first year back in office.
Trump reportedly made his decision earlier this week but had been discussing replacing Bondi, who was part of the legal team that defended him at his Senate impeachment trial in early 2020, since the turn of the year.
He had been angered by a “steady drip of frustrations” and a “lack of positive news coverage” concerning the DOJ, according to the WSJ, and had even presented aides with print-outs of hostile social media posts attacking his AG.
At one stage, the very mention of Bondi’s name was enough to send the president into a rage, ranting about the “terrible job” he felt she was doing.
For her part, Bondi had hung a giant banner from the DOJ’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., in the hope of currying favor with Trump and had attempted to meet his demand for legal action against his foes, only for cases against former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James to fall apart.
The WSJ reports that Bondi told confidantes she felt under constant pressure from the president's demands, some of which were not feasible.
Trump’s frustrations with her became apparent in September when the president posted a message on Truth Social that appeared to be intended for Bondi’s eyes only, in which he urged her to launch further probes into his preferred targets.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he wrote.
However, it was Bondi’s handling of the Epstein affair that threatened to define her legacy from the moment she appeared on Fox News in February 2025.
After just a matter of weeks in the role, Bondi was asked about a long-rumored “client list” said to have been compiled by the late pedophile containing the names of his powerful friends and potential blackmail targets.
“It’s sitting on my desk right now to review,” she answered confidently. “That’s been a directive by President Trump. I’m reviewing that.”
Her comment excited Trump’s base, only for the DOJ and FBI to issue a joint memo in July declaring that no such list existed.
This inspired a wave of public anger that lasted for the remainder of the year and ultimately led to the near-unanimous passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act by Congress in November.
Bondi’s blunder – followed up by a disastrous publicity stunt in which a group of jubilant right-wing influencers was invited to the White House and given binders filled with Epstein files that turned out to contain only previously-available information – meant she was largely relieved of messaging duties pertaining to the case thereafter, with Blanche taking the lead instead.
The files were finally published in December, and January proved to be incomplete and heavily redacted, inspiring fresh anger from Epstein survivors and leading to a heated appearance before the House Judiciary Committee in which Bondi sparred with Democrats and refused to turn and face the victims sitting in the public gallery behind her.
“Pam Bondi used the machinery of federal law enforcement not to pursue justice, but to carry out political vendettas at the direction of the president,” Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said Thursday, calling her firing “long overdue” and adding that it “does not erase the damage done and it does not absolve her of accountability.”
Lee Zeldin, who currently leads the Environmental Protection Agency, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro have been floated as possible permanent replacements for the AG.
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