WASHINGTON - United States President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday and named his former personal lawyer to serve as the acting chief of the Justice Department.
The move, which the Republican president announced in a social media post, comes amid criticism of Bondi's handling of the Epstein files and her failure to successfully prosecute several perceived Trump foes.
"Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year.
"Pam did a tremendous job overseeing a massive crackdown in Crime across our Country," Trump said.
Bondi "will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector," the president said, and will be replaced on an interim basis by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
Bondi has drawn fire from some Trump supporters for her handling of the release of the Justice Department files on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
The Epstein affair has been a major political liability for Trump, who was a longtime friend of the disgraced financier.
Bondi has also fallen short with efforts to successfully prosecute perceived Trump opponents such as former FBI director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
According to The New York Times, Trump may name Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, to be the next attorney general.
In the meantime, the post will be filled by Blanche, who was one of the personal lawyers who defended Trump in the multiple criminal cases he faced after he left the presidency in 2021.
Bondi's ouster comes nearly a month after Trump fired Kristi Noem as the head of the Department of Homeland Security.
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, defended Trump against impeachment during his first term and helped push his false claims of 2020 election fraud as he sought to cling on to the White House after defeat by Joe Biden.
Bondi served as a prosecutor for 18 years before being elected Florida's attorney general in 2010, the first woman to hold the post. She was reelected to a second term in 2014.
Bondi joined Trump's legal team during his first impeachment trial, in which he was alleged to have pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to find political dirt on his 2020 election opponent, Democrat Biden.
Trump was impeached by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives but acquitted by the Republican-majority Senate. - AFP