Former Attorney General Pam Bondi marked the second removal this year from the Trump Administration.

The removal was officially announced on Aug. 2 via post on Trump’s official Truth Social account which also announced  that Todd Blanche will step up to fill the position until further notice.

Bailey Fairbanks, a political science professor who specializes in law and politics in America, said, “We know that he [Trump] has let Attorney General Bondi go or he has asked her to step down and [the] currently acting Attorney General is Todd Blanche, who is also – just like Pam Bondi – one of his former personal attorneys,

 “A lot of speculation about the things that have happened as far as why. I can’t say for certain because we haven’t really said much or we haven’t really seen the full level investigation,” Fairbanks said. 

Bondi’s removal comes at a time of great criticism for the administration’s handling of the Epstein files.

Due to the attorney general being in charge of the Department of Justice (DOJ) Bondi and her department were in charge of handling said documents.

“There is some issues, of course, with her testimony,” Fairbanks said, “in particular, a lot of what I’ve seen, at least in the news, and a lot of what legal scholars are talking about has been not necessarily that … Attorney General Bondi hasn’t done things that are questionable, but more that she got on … President Trump’s bad side. In particular, she stated one of the things that she was actually in the testimony for him was being asked by the House Oversight Committee was concerning the Epstein files and how the Epstein files have evolved and I do think that saga is still to be known more.”

Due to 2025’s Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was passed by Congress, Bondi had to release the files; however, there have been many flaws in the release of the infamous documents.

“Not only given the fact that she was experienced as Trump’s personal attorney, but also right prior to the release and the passage of the Epstein Transparency Act and all of these things that she had said in the past. For instance, at one point she was asked about the Epstein files client list. She said the client list was on her desk and well, now suddenly there is no client’s list,” said Fairbanks. “I honestly think that … it’s just come to the point she had … to go. I think she became more of a liability than an asset.”

It is impossible to say how this will impact the rollout of the Epstein Files.

In the post announcing her removal Trump called the former attorney general “A Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” while also announcing that she would step into the private sector.

The job she will take hasn’t been announced yet.