WSJ delivers devastating postmortem as 'blundering' Pam Bondi ejected from Trump's DOJ

The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board had a blistering assessment of Attorney General Pam Bondi's record, now that President Donald Trump has given her the boot.

In short, the board argued, Bondi's fatal flaw in office is that "she was never good at saying no" to either Trump or his rabid base — even when what they were demanding of her was either impossible or completely contrary to the Justice Department's mission.

"She blundered on the Epstein files by boasting about big revelations that never materialized. This fed the conspiracists who fretted about a cover-up. A manageable problem turned into a political fiasco that has hurt the President," wrote the board. "She also kept trying to appoint U.S. Attorneys who hadn’t been confirmed by the Senate and were ultimately rejected by the courts. She presided over indictments of James Comey and Letitia James that judges dismissed."

The fact she failed so hard in the end is an ominous sign for Trump's plans moving forward for DOJ, wrote the board.

"Mr. Trump may have appointed Ms. Bondi, a former Florida AG, because he thought she’d be a yes-woman," they wrote. "The AG reports to an elected President. But a good AG owes the President his best independent legal advice, even if it’s something the boss doesn’t want to hear." This, they wrote, is ultimately something former Attorney General William Barr did at least better than Bondi, "standing up to criticism" and ultimately enraging Trump when he put his foot down on pursuing nonexistent voter fraud.

Many people whom Trump might be inclined to replace Bondi with aren't an improvement, wrote the board: for instance, "Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, would be another yes-woman. She sent a criminal subpoena to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell without evidence of a crime after Mr. Trump attacked the Fed chief. She’d have trouble getting through the Senate."

"The President’s use of lawfare to repay his enemies will backfire on him as it did on Democrats in 2024," the board concluded. "He needs an AG willing to tell him when his demands cross a legal line."