Trump dumps Bondi, despite the US attorney general's loyalty. Here's why

As loyal as she was to President Donald Trump, Pam Bondi apparently didn’t cut it as U.S. Attorney General after less than a year and a half on the job.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump said nothing about why he let Bondi go as the nation’s top law enforcement official, instead praising her as a “Great American Patriot and a loyal friend” who “did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country.”

In February of last year during her Senate confirmation hearing, Bondi vowed that she would not weaponize the Justice Department to target Trump’s adversaries. But in reality, she zealously carried out Trump’s MAGA agenda — fans and foes agree — targeting two of the president’s perceived political enemies, former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. A federal judge ended up dismissing their criminal cases in November, saying the prosecutor who filed the charges was unconstitutionally appointed by Bondi.

Bondi also authorized the firing of dozens of career prosecutors who had worked on criminal investigations into Trump after he lost the presidency to Joe Biden in November 2020, and she issued a memo to Justice Department staffers with an ultimatum that they could support Trump’s conservative agenda after he won the 2024 election or quit.

A seasoned South Florida lawyer who joined about 70 colleagues, scholars and others in bringing an ethics complaint against Bondi to the Florida Bar last summer said “history will not be kind to” her.

“She allowed herself to fall into Donald Trump’s orbit and was willing to do anything to remain there,” said Jon May, a criminal defense attorney who represented Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega in his drug-trafficking case in Miami

“Once that happened she did everything and anything necessary to advance Trump’s agenda, even if it meant destroying lives and reputations and the livelihood of decent human beings,” May told The Miami Herald. “She went over to the dark side.”

There’s been much speculation about why Trump fired Bondi, a Florida native who had served as the state attorney general after a long career as prosecutor in Hillsborough County.

But news media reports in Washington, D.C., suggest that Bondi’s downfall was at least partly the result of her mishandling of the so-called Epstein files, the Justice Department’s sex-trafficking investigation of the Manhattan-Palm Beach financier that has caused a political furor among Trump’s right-wing base.

Trump was reportedly also displeased with her handling of an investigation into former Biden-era special counsel Jack Smith, who had spearheaded two indictments charging Trump with igniting the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol building after he lost the election and with retaining classified documents from the U.S. government.

Bondi’s troubles began last July when the Justice Department and FBI issued a memo shutting down the Epstein investigation, saying there was nothing more to report about Epstein and his suicide in a federal lock-up in 2019 or the existence of a client list — only to reopen it amid a bombardment of criticism by Trump’s MAGA base. Adding fuel to the fire: Bondi had told Fox News in February of last year that an Epstein client list of high-profile associates who may have had sex with minor girls was“sitting” on her Justice Department desk — but then changed her story after the FBI memo was released.

Trump’s MAGA supporters grew more enraged. They repeated conspiracy theories on social media and in podcasts, suggesting without proof that Epstein didn’t kill himself and that Democratic President Bill Clinton and other major public figures may have sexually abused the underage girls that Epstein recruited to his residences. They continued to fuel speculation about his client list and who might be on it, despite Trump’s friendly relationship with Epstein before he was convicted of soliciting minor girls in a state plea deal in West Palm Beach in 2008.

In a rare bipartisan vote in November, Congress passed a law ordering the Justice Department to release the Epstein files — legislation that Trump reluctantly signed. But the department’s ponderous release of the documents over several months further damaged Bondi’s status in the Trump administration.

Bondi was also blamed for another Justice Department mistake that reflected poorly on the president, stemming from documents released to Republicans in Congress who are investigating Smith, the former special counsel who led the classified documents case against Trump. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee during his first term as president, prohibited the release of any documents in that case.

But last month, MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), reported that Smith and his staff wrote a 2023 “progress memo” that “discussed the possible motive (for the alleged crime) after the FBI discovered that Trump held on to many documents related to his businesses.”

The Bondi-led Justice Department released part of the document to Congress in response to an inquiry by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee who are investigating Smith.

“This particular production contained a memorandum detailing non-public information about the classified documents Trump stole when leaving office,” according to Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee.

“The newly produced materials offer a startling view of evidence gathered by Special Counsel Jack Smith during his investigations into the criminal activity of President Trump, even as DOJ continues to suppress Volume II of his final report” on the classified documents he held at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.