Pam Bondi, who oversaw US justice department upheaval, out as attorney general

US President Donald Trump said on 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.

She 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 department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation, which made Bondi the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Mr Trump.

She also struggled to satisfy Mr Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected by judges or grand juries.

The former Florida attorney general came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the justice department.

But she quickly started investigations of Mr Trump’s foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.

Ms Bondi ushered in a period of intense turmoil at the department that included the firings of career prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to Mr Trump and the resignations of hundreds of other employees.

Her departure continues a trend of justice department upheaval that has defined Mr Trump’s presidency, as multiple attorneys general across his two terms have either been pushed out or resigned after proving unwilling or unable to meet his demands for the position.

Ms Bondi rejected accusations that she politicised the justice department and said her mission was to restore its credibility after overreach by former president Joe Biden’s Democratic administration with two federal criminal cases against Mr Trump.

Pam Bondi came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the justice department PA Media

Ms Bondi’s defenders have said she worked to refocus the department to better tackle illegal immigration and violent crime and brought much-needed change to an agency they believe unfairly targeted conservatives.

Her public embrace of the president, however, marked a sharp departure from her predecessors, who generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions.

She postured herself as Mr Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of justice department headquarters.

She called for an end to the “weaponisation” of law enforcement she said took place under the Biden administration, even though Mr Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who produced two cases against Mr Trump, have said they followed the facts, the evidence and the law in their decision-making.

Her critics, meanwhile, said she was the one who had politicised the agency to do the president’s bidding.

Even Republicans began to challenge her, with the Republican-led house oversight committee last month issuing a subpoena to her to appear for a closed-door interview about the Epstein files.

Under her leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, New York attorney general Letitia James, former FBI director James Comey and former CIA director John Brennan.

The high-profile prosecutions of Mr Comey and Ms James were short-lived as they were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed.

Mr Trump repeatedly publicly praised and defended Ms Bondi but also showed flashes of impatience with his attorney general’s efforts to meet his demands to prosecute his rivals.

In one extraordinary social media post last year, Mr Trump called on her to move quickly to prosecute his foes, including Ms James and Mr Comey, telling her “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility”.

Ms Bondi oversaw the exodus of thousands of career employees, through firings and voluntary departures, including lawyers who prosecuted violent attacks on police at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021; environmental, civil rights and ethics enforcers; counterterrorism prosecutors; and others.

She struggled to overcome early stumbles over the Epstein files that angered conservatives eager for government bombshells about the case, which has long fascinated conspiracy theorists.

She herself had fed the conspiracy theory machine with a suggestion in a 2025 Fox News Channel interview that Epstein’s “client list” was sitting on her desk for review. The department later acknowledged that no such document exists.

Bondi was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Epstein files to conservative influencers at the White House only for it to be later disclosed that the documents included no new revelations.

And despite promises that more files were going to become public, the justice department in July said no more would be released, prompting Congress to pass a Bill to force the agency to do so.

Pam Bondi ushered in a period of intense turmoil at the justice department PA Media

The Epstein files fumbles led to a stunning public criticism from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Ms Bondi’s, who told Vanity Fair that the attorney general “completely whiffed”.

The justice department’s release of millions of pages of Epstein files did little to tamp down criticism, prompting a house committee with the support of five Republicans to subpoena Ms Bondi to answer questions under oath.

Ms Bondi, who defended Mr Trump during his first impeachment trial, was his second choice to lead the justice department, picked for the role after former representative Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.