Pam Bondi is now attorney general in name only, according to her deputy.
The Floridian and Trump loyalist is out after a little more than a year on the job, with the president announcing her firing last Thursday. Her handling of the Epstein files created a boondoggle for President Donald Trump during his first year in office, which spiraled into a full-scale Republican rebellion on Capitol Hill that was quashed only by the president dropping his opposition to the files coming out.
At a press conference on Tuesday, her replacement, Todd Blanche, was introduced as the “acting Attorney General” — nearly a full month before Bondi was due to leave her post and as her bio on the Justice Department’s website still refers to her as the head of the agency.
Blanche, meanwhile, made it clear that he was running things: “I am the acting attorney general. As far as Pam Bondi’s last day on the job, I’m the acting attorney general.”
He was also referred to as such on the department’s livestream. His official biography on the Department of Justice website refers to him as a deputy attorney general, with no indication of his change of status.
Bondi wrote in an X post last Thursday that she would stay on at the Department of Justice for another month to transition Blanche into the role of the agency’s director.
“Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about, and where I will continue fighting for President Trump and this Administration,” she wrote less than one week before her no. 2 seemed to subsume her job entirely.
On Monday, there was no sign of her guiding hand as Blanche assumed the position without aid.
Speaking about his own appointment and future, he said Monday: “As to whether or not I want this job, I did not ask for this job. I love working for President Trump. It’s the greatest honor of a lifetime, and if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor.”
“If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much. I love you, sir,’” added Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s personal attorney during his hush money trial in 2024.
The Independent reached out to the Justice Department for clarification of Bondi’s current status, but did not receive an immediate reply.
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last week, explaining that 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.”
That role hasn’t been announced yet, and until Monday, there was no sign that she’d even ceased the majority of her duties.
