• What Happened: With Pam Bondi fired, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, the man who served as President Trump's personal criminal defense attorney, is now acting Attorney General of the United States.
  • Why It Matters: Blanche defended Trump in the New York hush money trial and the classified documents case before taking the DAG role. He now controls the Justice Department, its investigations, and every pending prosecution of Trump's political opponents.
  • Bottom Line: The president's former defense lawyer is now the nation's top prosecutor. Only in Washington.

Pam Bondi rode in Trump's motorcade Wednesday morning. By Wednesday night she was fired and on a plane back to Florida. And the man who replaced her is someone who once sat beside Donald Trump at the defense table in a criminal courthouse.

Todd Blanche is now the acting Attorney General of the United States.

Bondi stated on the matter, "Over the next month I'll be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role," she added, "I will continue fighting for President Trump."

Blanche, who has served as Deputy Attorney General since Bondi's confirmation in February 2025, is best known to most Americans as Trump's personal criminal defense attorney during two of the most high-profile prosecutions in modern history. He represented Trump in the New York hush money trial, which ended in a guilty verdict on 34 felony counts. He represented Trump in the classified documents case before it was dismissed. He was, for years, the man paid to keep Donald Trump out of prison.

Now he runs the Justice Department.

The appointment is striking even by Washington standards. Blanche has almost no traditional prosecutorial experience. He built his career as a defense attorney, most recently at the white-shoe firm Cadwalader, Wickersham and Taft, before joining the Trump administration. His instincts are those of a defense lawyer, not a prosecutor. Some inside DOJ privately credited Blanche with slow-walking the administration's retribution prosecutions against Trump's political enemies, a dynamic that reportedly frustrated both Bondi and Trump himself. CBS News reported that Bondi had actually brought the U.S. attorney overseeing the John Brennan case to Washington specifically to explain why charges had not moved faster, with some sources inside DOJ blaming Blanche for the delays.

Now the man accused of pumping the brakes on Trump's agenda is running the entire operation.

Whether Blanche is a permanent pick or a placeholder remains to be seen. Lee Zeldin, the EPA Administrator who met with Trump on Tuesday and was widely expected to be Bondi's replacement, does not appear to be taking the job immediately. Trump has not announced a permanent nominee. Blanche steps into the role with the department in the middle of a wide range of politically charged investigations, pending prosecutions of Trump's perceived enemies, and the imminent release of FBI files on Rep. Eric Swalwell's alleged relationship with suspected Chinese spy Christine Fang, the very leak that Trump believes cost Bondi her job.

The man who spent years fighting to keep Trump out of the Justice Department's crosshairs is now the Justice Department. Washington has seen a lot. It has not seen quite this.