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 to the far right… but they had lines in the sand they were not willing to cross. In this second term, Trump has prioritized surrounding himself with those who are not willing to cross him.
And during her tenure as attorney general, Pam Bondi was certainly one of those people.
On Thursday, she lost her job anyway.
Not because Bondi wasn't loyal but because he couldn't make “it” go away.
And you know what I mean by “it.”
Since Bondi told a Fox News audience in February 2025 that the “client list” of the late pedophile and financier Jeffrey Epstein was “on my desk right now to review,” public interest in this saga has not wavered. Which is good. Some of the victims caught up in Epstein's international sex trafficking ring were as young as 12 years old. It is not healthy for a nation to leave something so atrocious behind without holding those involved accountable.
Yet since Bondi gave that Fox News interview, we've seen this administration respond to calls for justice for Epstein's victims with cynical retorts that it's all a partisan hoax. And at times, Bondi led this rebuttal, using her position as the nation's top police officer to gloss over what the girls went through and what the courts have already proven, just so as not to anger her boss.
And it didn't help her any more than compliance helped her predecessors.
Jeff Sessions was also loyal.
In fact, the former Alabama senator, who became Trump's first attorney general, was one of the first Beltway Republicans to support Trump's presidential campaign in 2015. The two were inseparable until Sessions failed to make the FBI investigation into Russian election interference go away. Just as his successor, William Barr, was forced to resign after saying publicly that the Justice Department had not found any widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
These are the rules in Trump's world. That's why last year, as England's King Charles stripped his brother, then Prince Andrew, of his titles because of his connection to Epstein, House Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned early to avoid a vote that would have made more documents public, or forced Republicans to go on record that abusers should not be held accountable.
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.
At this point, we all do it.
Earlier this year we saw the historic arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (the former prince) and Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to Washington, within days of each other due to their 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 have done more to protect the wrong people than to protect the victims, given the unredacted nude photographs of victims that should not have been made public and the redacted names of Epstein associates that should have been made public.
But as inept as Bondi was in handling the case, what ultimately ended her tenure was not her inability to deliver justice to the victims. It wasn't the client list he said was on his desk. It was not reported that she told the president that he was in the files before his release.
No, what cost Bondi his job was his 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 made it a priority to surround 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 his willingness to use the Justice Department to serve the president's interests at the expense of victims, particularly evident in his handling of Epstein's files, where he allowed unredacted nude photographs of victims to be made public while redacting the names of Epstein's associates.
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Despite campaign rhetoric about getting tough on sex trafficking during her time as a Florida politician, Bondi failed to prosecute anyone connected to Epstein, even as the UK arrested Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and Peter Mandelson in quick succession over their connections to Epstein.
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Trump's pattern with attorneys general reveals that loyalty alone cannot protect those in office from being fired when they fail to solve the president's problems, as Jeff Sessions and William Barr demonstrated before Bondi.
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Bondi's firing was ultimately due to his inability to make the Epstein situation go away and protect the president from accountability, not general incompetence or political disagreements.
Different points of view on the topic.
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Trump became frustrated by Bondi's inability to successfully prosecute his political enemies, as he faced repeated legal failures in attempting to indict or indict people such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and sitting Democratic lawmakers, and grand juries rejected attempts to bring charges.[2].
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Bondi's struggles reflected inherent institutional limitations rather than a lack of effort, as judges intervened in cases and the court system blocked attempts to pursue Trump's perceived enemies, 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 a historic outflow of talent through layoffs, resignations, and early retirements, suggesting systemic institutional challenges that complicated judicial efforts.[1].
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Bondi's public testimony before Congress and her public persona upset the president in recent months, contributing to the decision to remove her along with other factors related to her handling of Epstein's files.[1].
