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Is Trump turning on his own attorney general?



President Donald Trump has been venting to aides in recent weeks about his
hand-picked Attorney General Pam Bondi, complaining that she hasn’t been
aggressive—or effective—enough in carrying out his priorities at the Justice
Department.

According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Trump’s frustration
has been building for months and appears tied to a broader effort to pressure
the DOJ to move faster and hit harder. Never shy about airing grievances with
his Cabinet, Trump has grown particularly vocal about Bondi.

That tension is notable given how closely Bondi has aligned herself with
Trump. Since taking office, she has fired prosecutors involved in past
investigations of him and has become a familiar defender on Fox News.




 



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Even so, allies say it still hasn’t been enough to satisfy Trump.

This month alone, people familiar with the matter told the Journal, Trump has
floated the idea of appointing special counsels to bypass what he sees as a
sluggish DOJ. His chief complaint is Bondi’s failure to quickly and decisively
prosecute figures he views as political enemies, including former FBI Director
James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James.

Those efforts have not gone Trump’s way. In November, a judge dismissed cases
targeting both Comey and James, ruling that the Trump aide who secured the
indictments had been improperly appointed. And Trump has been angry that the
matters have stalled rather than accelerated.

Bondi has also taken heat for the DOJ’s rollout of the Epstein files, which
has dragged on for months and fueled conspiracy theories among Trump’s base.

When White House chief of staff Susie Wiles criticized Bondi’s handling of
the files in a Vanity Fair profile, Trump privately agreed, according to two
officials.

“I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very
targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said. “First, she gave them
binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the
client list, was on her desk.”

“There is no client list, and it sure as hell wasn’t on her desk,” Wiles
added.

Trump has also been hearing from outside allies that Bondi isn’t delivering.
One of the loudest critics has been Steve Bannon, who told the Journal that
supporters are “desperate for action” on issues like the 2020 election and the
Russia investigation “and just haven’t seen it.”




 



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All of that has reportedly made its way back to Bondi herself, with Trump
complaining directly to her, even as the White House insists publicly that
everything is fine.

“Pam is doing an excellent job. She has been my friend for many years,” Trump
said in a statement to the Journal. “Tremendous progress is being made against
radical left lunatics who are good at only one thing, cheating in elections and
the crimes they commit.”

Other senior officials, including Vice President JD Vance, also issued
statements praising Bondi. Bondi, through a spokesperson, said she remains
committed to carrying out Trump’s agenda.

Still, there are signs her standing may be slipping. She was notably absent
when Trump announced the capture of Nicolás Maduro. And last week, Vance
unveiled a new high-level DOJ role to investigate fraud—one that reports to the
White House rather than to Bondi.

The dynamic echoes Trump’s fraught relationships with his first-term attorneys
general, Jeff Sessions and William Barr. But whether this is the beginning of
the end for Bondi or simply another pressure campaign to push her further, the
message is clear: In Trump’s DOJ, loyalty is never a permanent shield.



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