{"id":378740,"date":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378740\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T19:41:08","slug":"donald-trump-fires-us-attorney-general-pam-bondi-white-house-says-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/378740\/","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump fires US attorney general Pam Bondi, White House says \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

US<\/a> president Donald Trump<\/a> removed attorney general Pam \u200cBondi<\/a> from her post on Thursday, a White House official said, following mounting frustration with her performance, including her handling of investigative files related to the late financier and \u200csex offender Jeffrey Epstein<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump confirmed Bondi \u200cwas \u200cremoved \u200bfrom \u2060her post \u200band \u200bsaid \u200cshe was \u200bbeing replaced \u2060by \u2060deputy \u200battorney general Todd Blanche \u200cin an \u2060acting capacity.<\/p>\n

In a social media post, he praised Bondi as a \u201cGreat American Patriot and a loyal friend\u201d and said she will move to a job in the private sector.<\/p>\n

Trump had reportedly grown frustrated that Bondi was not moving quickly enough to prosecute critics and adversaries who he wanted to face criminal charges.<\/p>\n

During \u200bher tenure as the top US law enforcement official, Bondi was a combative champion of Trump\u2019s agenda and dismantled the justice department\u2019s long-standing tradition of independence from the White House in its investigations.<\/p>\n

But it was repeated criticism over the Epstein files, including from Trump allies and some Republican lawmakers, that came to dominate \u200bher tenure. Bondi was accused of covering up or mismanaging the release of records on the justice department\u2019s sex trafficking investigations into Epstein, a financier who cultivated ties with \u2060an array of wealthy and powerful figures. <\/p>\n

The issue created political headaches for Trump and drew renewed scrutiny of his \u200cpast \u200cfriendship \u200bwith Epstein, which he has said ended decades ago.<\/p>\n

\"BondiBondi (right) with Trump and US defence secretary Pete Hegseth at an event in Mempis, Tennessee, in March. Photograph: Roberto Schmidt\/Getty <\/p>\n

Her ouster could lead to a shake-up in strategy at the justice department and potentially a renewed push to deploy the US legal system against \u2060Trump\u2019s targets. Bondi is the second senior Trump official \u200bto be ousted recently.<\/p>\n

Trump removed homeland security secretary Kristi Noem \u200bon March 5th following criticism of her management of the agency and Trump\u2019s immigration agenda.<\/p>\n

Bondi, a former Republican state attorney general in Florida, \u200csaid she worked on restoring the justice department\u2019s focus \u200bon violent crime and rebuilding trust with Trump\u2019s supporters after federal prosecutors twice criminally charged Trump during his years out of \u2060power.<\/p>\n

Bondi also faced criticism over the removal of \u2060dozens of career prosecutors who worked \u200bon investigations disfavoured by Trump, with critics accusing her of abandoning the justice department\u2019s traditional focus on even-handed justice.<\/p>\n

Bondi defended the roll-out of the Epstein files, saying the Trump administration had been more transparent on the issue than previous presidents and that justice department lawyers worked on a compressed timeline to review reams of material.<\/p>\n

During a combative hearing before a US House of Representatives panel in January, Bondi responded to criticism with political attacks directed at lawmakers. She refused to apologise or look at Epstein victims and their relatives who attended the proceedings.<\/p>\n

Bondi early last year played into fevered speculation about the Epstein \u200cfiles, saying a client list \u2060was on her desk for review. But after an initial release included material that had largely already been public, the justice department and FBI declared in July that the case was closed and that no further disclosures were warranted.<\/p>\n

The move \u200cprompted an eruption of criticism and eventually a bipartisan law passed in November requiring the justice department to release nearly all of its files.<\/p>\n

The release of \u200broughly 3 million pages of records still did not quell the controversy, as lawmakers \u200bcriticised redactions in the files and the disclosure of the identities of some Epstein victims. The Republican-led House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Bondi and she was set to testify on April 14th. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"US president Donald Trump removed attorney general Pam \u200cBondi from her post on Thursday, a White House official…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11503,969,42,11111,43,51251,40,38,41,39,20966,115],"class_list":{"0":"post-378740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-cnn","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-jeffrey-epstein","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pam-bondi","14":"tag-top-news","15":"tag-top-stories","16":"tag-topnews","17":"tag-topstories","18":"tag-trump-presidency","19":"tag-united-states"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}