Trump fires Attorney General Pam Bondi

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 announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives, even with her close relationship with Trump. She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries or yet to produce charges. Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanen