Zev Shalev – The Narativ: “President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi on Wednesday, removing the nation’s top law enforcement officer after months of growing frustration over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and what Trump saw as her failure to prosecute his political enemies aggressively enough. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump’s former personal criminal defense lawyer in the Manhattan hush money case — is now acting attorney general. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is the leading candidate for permanent replacement. The timing is not subtle. The House Oversight Committee issued a bipartisan subpoena on March 17 compelling Bondi to sit for a deposition on April 14 about the Justice Department’s catastrophic mishandling of the Epstein files release. She was fired twelve days before that deposition. Bondi is the second Cabinet member axed this term, following Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March. Here’s what happened, and why it matters. The DOJ’s Epstein files release, which Bondi championed as a transparency victory, became a rolling catastrophe. Attorneys for victims identified thousands of redaction failures across the released documents. The Wall Street Journal found at least 43 victims’ full names exposed — including more than two dozen who were minors when they were abused. Some names appeared over 100 times. Home addresses were visible through simple keyword searches. The Justice Department published dozens of unredacted nude images showing young women or possibly teenagers with faces visible, images that were only removed after the New York Times began notifying the department. Meanwhile, a bipartisan group of senators noted that while victims were being exposed, information identifying powerful business and political figures who are alleged coconspirators or material witnesses was heavily redacted. The DOJ even omitted communications involving Bondi herself, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Deputy AG Todd Blanche from the released files. Brad Edwards and Brittany Henderson, attorneys who had provided the Justice Department with a list of 350 victims on December 4 to ensure their names would be redacted, said the department failed to perform a basic keyword search to verify its redaction process. Edwards called it “literally thousands of mistakes.”

• See also New York Times(Gift Article): Trump Fires Pam Bondi as Attorney General
• See also WSJ (Gift Article): At Justice Department, Bondi tried to deliver on president’s priorities but ultimately failed to appease him