Washington — President Trump has ousted Pam Bondi as U.S. attorney general, a move that comes amid dissatisfaction with how aggressively she pursued Mr. Trump’s priorities at the Justice Department, including prosecutions of his perceived political enemies, multiple sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will be acting attorney general and Bondi is expected to be offered a different post in the administration, sources said.
White House officials have discussed several possibilities as options for attorney general, but Lee Zeldin, the Senate-confirmed administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, is the likely replacement, sources said Thursday.
Mr. Trump met with Zeldin on Tuesday.
The president is fond of Bondi, and expresses personal affection for her in private conversations, multiple sources said earlier this week. He has also long praised her publicly.
During Bondi’s tenure, the department has pursued a wide variety of criminal investigations into Mr. Trump’s perceived political opponents, but most of the cases to date have not proven successful.
Mr. Trump has felt frustrated there haven’t been more indictments and arrests of his political adversaries, even as sources told CBS News that efforts to prosecute former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson and former CIA Director John Brennan are looming.
Bondi had the U.S. attorney overseeing the Brennan case come to Washington, D.C., to answer questions about why the case hadn’t been progressing more quickly, sources said. Jason Quiñones, whose district is in southern Florida, had meetings this week at the Justice Department.
A federal judge dismissed indictments last fall against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after finding the U.S. attorney who brought the charges was unlawfully appointed. Probes into Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff, Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook have not resulted in charges to date.
Efforts to investigate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and six congressional Democrats who posted a video urging military members to defy unlawful orders have also faltered, with a federal judge quashing the subpoenas into Powell and a grand jury unanimously rejecting criminal charges against the lawmakers.
Some of Bondi’s allies believe that the lack of prosecutions against Mr. Trump’s enemies is being driven by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who has not pushed them too hard amid political concerns and worries about his future after his Justice Department career.
Zeldin, a former congressman, also has very little legal experience, and that could cause a crisis of confidence at the department among both career and politically appointed officials.
Zeldin has worked as a military prosecutor in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, but hasn’t been a traditional prosecutor.
The Justice Department has seen sweeping changes in the year since Bondi was confirmed, from the shuttering of multiple offices to the mass exodus of thousands of federal lawyers who resigned, took buyouts or were fired.
Most employees who were fired worked on issues that were disfavored by Mr. Trump and his allies — including prosecutors and FBI agents who were involved in probes into Mr. Trump over his retention of classified records and efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.