Trump Has Reportedly Discussed Firing Pam Bondi

AP Photo/John McDonnell

President Donald Trump has discussed the possibility of firing Attorney General Pam Bondi after growing discontent over her handling of the Justice Department, a new report claims.

Four people familiar with the conversations the president had on the topic told The New York Times that Trump has floated naming Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin as her potential replacement.

The president has not yet decided on the matter, telling the Times in a statement that Bondi “is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job.”

Bondi’s standing in the MAGA world has taken a couple of notable hits in recent months, with reports that the president has complained about her ineffectiveness in going after his political enemies. Trump posted a long screed directed at Bondi in October– reportedly a post that was supposed to be a private message– urging her to bring criminal charges against Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former FBI Director James Comey.

Her most public failing seems to have come in her handling of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein. From the beginning of the scandal, Bondi’s moves caused problems for the White House, from her now infamous claim that the Epstein files were “sitting on my desk right now,” to the binders of the documents she handed out to a handful of MAGA influencers– a choice that reportedly blindsided the White House.

Trump’s Chief of Staff Susie Wiles ripped into Bondi in an interview with Vanity Fair last year over both incidents, encapsulating MAGA fury at the AG’s actions in giving out “binders full of nothingness” purporting to be part of a file that “sure as hell wasn’t on her desk.”

The calls for Bondi to resign only grew louder as the Justice Department began releasing the heavily redacted files. The redactions themselves were so sweeping that the Republican-led House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena Bondi over their release.

Yet nothing compares to the backlash Bondi received after her marathon House Judiciary Committee hearing, where her claims that Democrats were focusing on Epstein to avoid talking about how “the Dow right now is over 50,000″ received harsh criticism from inside Trump’s party.

The president has continued to praise Bondi in public, appearing at the Supreme Court on Wednesday with her by his side. He has not yet decided on who, if anyone, should replace her, though he has directly mentioned Zeldin for the role.

Representatives for the E.P.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The New York Times, and a spokesman for Bondi directed the outlet to the president’s statement.

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