Both FOX News and CNN are reporting U.S. Attorney General has been fired by President Donald Trump. Those reports say Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will step into an Acting AG role for now.
There had been reports this week that Mr. Trump had been privately discussing the possibility of firing Bondi and replacing her with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, three people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Thursday. There are also rumors inside the Justice Department about Jeanine Pirro is a possibility. Pirro is a former FOX personality, and currently is serving as the United States Attorney for Washington D.C.
In the last hour, the president posted to Truth Social, calling Bondi a loyal friend.
"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," he says.
In conversations, Trump has discussed his ongoing frustration with Bondi over her handing of the Jeffrey Epstein files and hurdles the Department of Justice has encountered in investigations into Trump’s perceived enemies, the people said. The Republican president has mentioned other candidates but has raised Zeldin’s name as recently as this week, the people said.
The people were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.
Those reports said that no decision has been announced, and Trump has been known to change his mind on personnel decisions.
"Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job,” Trump said in a statement produced by the White House.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022, has emerged as a Trump favorite and was praised by the president at an event in February as “our secret weapon."
He is widely viewed as a loyal Trump ally and has been eager to pursue Trump’s deregulatory agenda. Like Trump, Zeldin regularly derides Democrats’ efforts to fight climate change as the “Green New Scam" and he joined Trump at the White House when the administration revoked a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions a nd slow climate change.
Bondi has also endured months of scrutiny over her department’s handling of the Epstein files that made her the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump.
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 quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed. Other politically charged investigations have either been rejected by grand juries or failed to result in criminal charges.
Earlier, Trump fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, replacing her with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (OK).
ALANNA DURKIN RICHER, ERIC TUCKER, MICHAEL BALSAMO and MICHELLE L. PRICE of the Associated Press contributed to this story.
