Trump dismisses US Attorney General, Pam Bondi

WashingtonPresident Donald Trump has dismissed Pam Bondi as Attorney General of the United States, as announced in a Truth Social post this Thursday. "We all love Pam, and now she will go do a much more important job, where she is needed much more, in the private sector," the Republican wrote. From now on, according to the president, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will assume the role on an interim basis.

The president replaces a loyalist with his former lawyer: Blanche was one of the members of the legal team that handled the president's defense in the four criminal cases for which he was indicted. He has also been in charge of overseeing the publication of the Epstein case documents after Congress passed a law to force the process. Upon publishing the millions of files, Blanche wanted to consider the transparency exercise closed, although it was later seen that interviews had been withheld.

Shortly before the magnate announced it on his social network, several US media outlets were already reporting that the leader was planning to fire Bondi. The Attorney General is not the first member Trump has fired in his second term, but it is the first case where the president has not reassigned her to an alternative position within the government. Last year, the president appointed Michael Waltz as US Ambassador to the UN after firing him as National Security Advisor, having added journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the Signal group where plans to bomb Houthi targets were shared.

Likewise, last month, when Kristi Noem was dismissed as head of the Department of Homeland Security due to ICE killings in Minnesota, Trump announced a new position for her leading a "new security initiative in the Western Hemisphere." Instead, Bondi has ended up exiled to the private sector.

Cases against Trump's enemies

Despite publicly showing satisfaction with the attorney general, the president had internally complained on numerous occasions about her task leading the Department of Justice. Trump considered that the attorney general was not aggressive enough when it came to taking legal action against his political enemies. Last September, the president had publicly reprimanded Bondi for not succeeding in pressing charges against former FBI Director James Comey. After the scolding via Truth Social –"Justice must be done, now!" –, the Department of Justice opened an investigation against Comey that proved fruitless, as the charges were dismissed by the judge. This further infuriated the president with his employee's performance.

The president also had to push Bondi to open investigations against Attorney General Letitia James –the one who led the accusation against the Trump family for the tax fraud case in New York– and Democrat Adam Schiff, who initiated the impeachment process against the president during his first term. Beyond the lack of aggressiveness to the president's liking, the handling of the Epstein case also seems to have finally exhausted Trump's short patience. Last February, the attorney general had a tense appearance in Congress where several members of the committee overseeing the publication of the pedophile's papers questioned Bondi's handling of the case.

Shortly after, this same committee voted in favor of summoning Bondi to testify about the Department of Justice's investigation into Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 before his trial for sex trafficking of minors. In principle, her testimony was scheduled for April 14.