President Donald Trump announced that Pam Bondi will leave her role as attorney general and move to a private sector job to be announced later, and that todd blanche, his deputy attorney general, will serve as acting attorney general, Trump wrote in a post on his social media platform.
Bondi confirmed the transition in a social media post, saying she will work to "transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche" before moving to the private sector and that she remains committed to fighting for the president and the administration.
Blanche has served as the nation’s No. 2 law enforcement official since Senate confirmation in March of last year and previously worked at the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, the announcement and reporting said.
He also represented the president as a defense attorney in cases brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and former special counsel Jack Smith, and he has publicly expressed strong loyalty to the president, the sources reported.
Reactions Efforts And Institutional Concerns
Bondi’s tenure had been marked by efforts to reshape the Justice Department as an enforcer of the president’s agenda, and she repeatedly embraced prosecutions of specific targets, a shift from post Watergate norms intended to protect departmental independence, according to reporting.
The department’s attempts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James faltered after a judge ruled that the prosecutor who indicted them was appointed unlawfully, and attempts to revive the case were twice rejected by a grand jury, the reporting said.
Separately, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s effort to indict six Democratic lawmakers over a video urging military service members to refuse unlawful orders was rejected by a grand jury, and Pirro is appealing a court order that has put on hold an attempt to investigate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
The announcement drew alarm from Democrats and voting rights groups who fear the White House may seek to use the Justice Department and FBI to intervene in elections, and survivors and advocates criticized Bondi’s handling of the department’s files from investigations into Jeffrey Epstein, with survivor Annie Farmer urging accountability and transparency.
Blanche recently appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Grapevine, Texas, where he defended the department to conservative critics and welcomed public pressure, saying criticism motivates him, the reporting said. House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Robert Garcia stated that a committee subpoena for Bondi remains in force and that she will still need to appear before the panel.
