US President Donald Trump ousted Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday after mounting frustration with her performance, especially over the release of files on late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Trump also felt Bondi was not moving quickly enough to prosecute critics and adversaries whom he wanted to face criminal charges, according to sources.
The move comes months after the president’s opponents called her Trump’s Ghislaine Maxwell, a reference to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s jailed associate.
Celebrities including Hollywood star Channing Tatum used their social media accounts to share posts against Pam Bondi over her handling of Epstein files.
In February, a Republican US lawmaker Bondi of concealing the names of powerful associates of Epstein as she faced questions about the Justice Department’s handling of investigative files in a charged hearing before a House of Representatives panel.
Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, who helped lead the effort to require the files’ release, accused the Justice Department of a “massive failure” to comply with the law as he questioned why billionaire Leslie Wexner’s name was redacted in an FBI document listing potential co-conspirators in the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein.
Bondi said Wexner’s name appeared numerous times in other files the department released and that the DOJ unredacted his name on the document “within 40 minutes” of Massie spotting it.
“Forty minutes of me catching you red-handed,” Massie replied.
The Justice Department released what it called a final tranche of more than 3 million pages of documents late last month, drawing renewed attention to wealthy and powerful individuals who maintained ties with Epstein even after his conviction for soliciting prostitution from a minor.
Bondi responded to the criticism in many cases with personal attacks and insults directed at lawmakers. Flipping through a binder, she accused Democrats of being indifferent to crime victims in their districts and called the panel’s top Democrat a “washed-up lawyer,” a notably partisan tone from the chief law enforcement officer in the US.
