Amna Nawaz:
Welcome to the “News Hour.”
President Donald Trump has ousted the second member of his Cabinet in less than a month. Attorney General Pam Bondi will be leaving her role after just 14 months on the job. In a post on his social media platform, the president said Bondi would be — quote — “transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector.” He did not specify the reason for her dismissal.
Our justice correspondent, Ali Rogin, has more on Bondi’s firing and what comes next for the Department of Justice.
Ali Rogin:
Amna, after the announcement, Bondi called her time as A.G. the honor of a lifetime and said it was easily the most consequential first year of the Department of Justice in American history.
During her tenure, Bondi has faced bipartisan criticism for her handling of the department’s investigation into late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and the president himself has expressed frustration over her lack of prosecutions of his perceived political enemies.
But Bondi was also a vocal ally of President Trump who frequently attacked members of Congress on his behalf, including at a combative hearing in February.
Pam Bondi, Former U.S. Attorney General:
I find it interesting that she keeps going after President Trump, the greatest president in American history.
Ali Rogin:
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as President Trump’s personal attorney, will lead the department until the president names a new nominee for the role.
For more on what this means for the DOJ, I’m joined by Mary McCord. She’s a former acting assistant attorney general for national security and longtime federal prosecutor. She’s now executive director of the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.
Mary, thank you so much for being here.
Mary McCord, Former Justice Department Official:
Thanks for having me.
Ali Rogin:
Fourteen months in, what is Pam Bondi’s legacy going to be as attorney general?
Mary McCord:
Well, I think probably the things that people will remember her for the most probably is the debacle of the Epstein investigation. I mean, way back early in Donald Trump’s tenure, she really promised that the client files were on her desk.
That had to have just been made up, because it was only months later that she said, we don’t have anything here. I’ve investigated this along with the FBI director. There’s no criminal cases coming out. There is no client list.
And then, of course, we’ve seen what has happened since then. There are so many other things that she did that I feel like she should be remembered for. And these are mostly not good things at all, completely undermining the independence of the Department of Justice from the White House, saying famously in the Great Hall the first time she addressed the men and women of the department that she was so pleased to be working under the direction of the president of the United States.
And that’s really complete anathema to the prosecutors who, in order to show the American people that justice is not being used for political purposes, want to keep that distance.
Ali Rogin:
Why do you think this is happening and why now?
Mary McCord:
I have actually thought for some time that this was going to happen. And it’s getting in — Donald Trump’s minds about when he — mind about when he decides to do something is difficult to do. It’s usually tied to a news cycle or to try to distract from news, I think.
And so, today, it’s not clear. He had a bad day in the Supreme Court yesterday with the birthright citizenship argument, which had really nothing to do with Pam Bondi, but still perhaps he wants a distraction. Now, whether this is the kind of distraction he wants, I don’t know.
The Epstein matter, this all — what this really will do is bring that back into the fore of discussion, even while people were starting to discuss other things, because, again, I think that’s really one of the things she’s most known for.
Ali Rogin:
We also know that President Trump was frustrated with her failure to successfully prosecute some of his political adversaries, James Comey, Tish James, to name a few.
Some of the top names being circulated to replace her include current EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro. Would any of these names have any more success in those prosecutions of political adversaries than Bondi did?
Mary McCord:
You know, her lack of success there is because the evidence didn’t support the charges.
And that’s what we have seen with — when grand juries like we have heard already under Jeanine Pirro’s watch in Washington, D.C., a grand jury rejected efforts to indict the members of Congress who had put out the truth in a statement, saying that members of the military owe an oath to the Constitution and not to obey unlawful orders.
That was just a true statement. And the grand jury refused to indict. We have seen vindictive and selective prosecution motions filed in the cases of James and Jim Comey. Now, the court didn’t have to actually reach the final merits of those because they kicked those cases out on the grounds that Lindsey Halligan was unlawfully in that office.
But they were powerful motions that, even though Lindsey Halligan had managed to get indictments there, those motions and some other statements by the judges in those cases suggested she might have done so by failing — by saying things to the grand jurors that she wasn’t supposed to say.
So, the long and the short answer to your question is, a different person doesn’t change whether there is a lack of evidence. And some of the suggested prosecutions are just really straining to find something to prosecute.
Ali Rogin:
Todd Blanche, who’s currently the deputy attorney general, will serve in the acting capacity as the leader until someone is named. He was President Trump’s former lawyer. He interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell last year.
Epstein survivors who have criticized the DOJ’s handling of this say it’s not about Pam Bondi; it’s about a system that has failed them repeatedly. So is Todd Blanche going to provide continuity here in terms of how the DOJ has handled it thus far?
Mary McCord:
I mean, with respect to that case, I think he really made a mess of things when he did do that interview with Ghislaine Maxwell, because he suggested that this was going to come to some sort of conclusions.
But what we have seen when you read the transcript of those interviews, as a former prosecutor, there’s nothing about that interview that tracks with what prosecutors would normally do when they’re interviewing somebody who is complicit in the crimes, right?
And he was a former prosecutor or was a prosecutor. He is a former prosecutor. So he does know better. I don’t think he’s — he has definitely been as involved in this matter as Pam Bondi was. And I think that now I think he’s maybe benefited from so much criticism being levied against her.
And that focus may turn more to him now, because she’s not going to be there.
Ali Rogin:
Mary McCord with Georgetown Law, thank you so much for your insights.
Mary McCord:
My pleasure.
