In President Trump’s first term, many members of his Cabinet were establishment conservatives with tangible, executive experience who were willing to follow the president far to the right … but had lines in the sand they were unwilling to cross. In this second term, Trump has prioritized surrounding himself with those who are unwilling to cross him.
And during her time as attorney general, Pam Bondi was unquestionably one of those people.
On Thursday, she lost her job anyway.
Not because Bondi wasn’t loyal but because she couldn’t make “it” go away.
And you know what I mean about “it.”
Since Bondi told a Fox News audience in February 2025 that the “client list” for the deceased pedophile/financier Jeffrey Epstein was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” the public’s interest in this saga has not wavered. Which is a good thing. Some of the victims ensnared in Epstein’s international sex trafficking web were as young as 12. It’s unhealthy for a nation to just move on from something so heinous without holding those involved accountable.
Yet ever since Bondi gave that Fox News interview, we have seen this administration meet calls for justice for Epstein’s victims with cynical retorts of it all being a partisan hoax. And at times leading this rebuttal was Bondi, using her position as the nation’s top police officer to overlook what the young women went through and what the courts have already proven — just so she wouldn’t cross her boss.
And it didn’t help her any more than compliance helped her predecessors.
Jeff Sessions was loyal as well.
In fact, the former senator from Alabama, who became Trump’s first attorney general, was among the earliest Republicans from inside the Beltway to come out in support of Trump’s campaign for president back in 2015. The two were inseparable until Sessions was unable to make the FBI’s investigation into Russia’s election interference go away. Just as his successor, William Barr, was forced to resign after he said publicly that the Justice Department had found no widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
These are the rules in Trump’s world. That’s why last year, while King Charles of England was stripping his brother, then Prince Andrew, of his titles because of his connection to Epstein, House Speaker Mike Johnson was adjourning the chamber early to avoid a vote that would have released more documents — or forced Republicans to go on record publicly shielding abusers from accountability.
That’s how far some are willing to go to make Trump’s problems disappear. That may not be the rule of law, but it is the rule of the game he plays.
Bondi understood that.
By this point, we all do.
Earlier this year we saw the historic arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (the former prince) and Peter Mandelson, the U.K.’s former ambassador to Washington, within days of each other because of connections to Epstein. And yet Bondi, who during her time as a Florida politician ran campaign ads proclaiming to be tough on sex trafficking, had yet to arrest anyone.
In the limited set of Epstein files that were released, Bondi’s Justice Department may well have done more to protect the wrong people than to protect the victims, given the unredacted nude photos of victims that should not have been made public and the redacted names of Epstein associates that should have been.
But as inept as Bondi had been in handling of the case, what ultimately ended her tenure wasn’t her inability to deliver justice for the victims. It was not the talk of the client list she said was on her desk. It was not reports that she had told the president he was in the files prior to their release.
No, what cost Bondi her job was her inability to clean up the president’s mess.
YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow
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Ideas expressed in the piece
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Trump has prioritized surrounding himself with cabinet members unwilling to challenge him in his second term, and Pam Bondi exemplified this extreme loyalty during her tenure as attorney general.
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Bondi’s tenure was defined by her willingness to use the Justice Department to serve the president’s interests at the expense of victims, particularly evident in her handling of the Epstein files, where she allowed unredacted nude photos of victims to be made public while redacting the names of Epstein associates.
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Despite campaign rhetoric about being tough on sex trafficking during her time as a Florida politician, Bondi failed to prosecute anyone connected to Epstein even as the U.K. arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson in quick succession due to their Epstein connections.
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Trump’s pattern with attorneys general reveals that loyalty alone cannot protect those in the position from being fired when they fail to solve the president’s problems, as demonstrated by Jeff Sessions and William Barr before Bondi.
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Bondi’s dismissal was ultimately about her inability to make the Epstein situation disappear and shield the president from accountability, not about general incompetence or policy disagreements.
Different views on the topic
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Trump grew frustrated with Bondi’s inability to successfully prosecute his political enemies, as she faced repeated legal failures when attempting to indict or charge individuals such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and sitting Democratic lawmakers, with grand juries rejecting attempts to bring charges[2].
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Bondi’s struggles reflected inherent institutional limitations rather than lack of effort, as judges intervened in cases and the judicial system blocked attempts to go after Trump’s perceived foes, creating barriers that may have been beyond the attorney general’s control[1].
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The Justice Department experienced unprecedented upheaval under Bondi’s leadership, with historic talent outflow through firings, resignations, and early retirements, suggesting systemic institutional challenges that complicated prosecutorial efforts[1].
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Bondi’s public testimony to Congress and her public persona displeased the president in recent months, contributing to the decision to remove her alongside other factors related to the Epstein files handling[1].