Pam Bondi indicated she had a month to transition out of her job as attorney general and hand the reins over to her one-time deputy, Todd Blanche, but that might not be the case.
The Justice Department on Tuesday scheduled a press conference with “Acting” Attorney General Todd Blanche, indicating Bondi was already out of the door.
The Daily Beast asked the Justice Department to clarify. After all, Bondi’s name still shows up on the website and social media.
However, the department’s website referred to Blanche as “Acting AG Todd Blanche” while streaming his press conference.
At the top of his remarks on Tuesday, Blanche praised Bondi and said he hopes they will be able to continue working together on whatever she has coming next.
Pressed directly on when Bondi’s last day would be, Blanche would not say.
“I am the acting attorney general. As far as Pam Bondi’s last day on the job, I’m the acting attorney general,” Blanche stammered.
He noted that he would be traveling with Bondi on Wednesday for a prescheduled event, and that they’ve been communicating regularly over the past few days “for an appropriate transition.”
Trump announced Bondi was on her way out on Thursday in a post on Truth Social in which he wrote “We love Pam“ and said she would be ”transitioning to a much-needed and important new job in the private sector."
The day before, Bondi had tried to hold onto the job a little longer, according to the New York Times. She was hoping for a “graceful” exit. But Trump announced she was being axed less than 24 hours later.
The attorney general again tried to save face, announcing that she was excited to be moving to the private sector.
“Over the next month I will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role I am thrilled about,” she wrote on X.
Her post was reshared by Blanche, Trump’s former personal criminal defense attorney, whose social media account still lists him as the deputy AG.
But while Bondi gave herself the month to move on, the timeline appears to be moving faster than she indicated.
The rapidly evolving timeline is similar to what happened to fired former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem.
For one, neither Bondi nor Noem was in Washington, D.C., when Trump went public with the announcement that he was letting them go.
Also, when Trump announced Noem was leaving the role, he indicated she would stay through the end of March before becoming a special envoy, but that ousting was also quickly moved up.
After former Sen. Markwayne Mullin was quickly confirmed by the Senate as the next DHS secretary, he was sworn in the very next day, March 24, rather than waiting a week until March 31.
Trump has yet to announce who will be his permanent replacement for Bondi, but with Blanche already assuming the acting title for a press conference on Tuesday, Bondi’s days are limited.
Blanche, 51, gushed on Tuesday about how much he enjoys working for the president as if it were a normal thing for the acting attorney general to do, but he would not speculate on taking the role permanently.
“I love working for President Trump. It’s the greatest honor of a lifetime,” he said. “If President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that’s an honor. If he chooses to nominate me, that’s an honor.”
“If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say, ‘Thank you very much, I love you, sir,’” he added.
Blanche also served as his personal criminal defense attorney when Trump was convicted with 34 felony counts in New York in 2024.
