The One Thing Trump Wanted That Pam Bondi Failed to Deliver

Mr. Toobin is a contributing Opinion writer and the author of “The Pardon: The Politics of Presidential Mercy.”

President Trump had many good reasons to fire Attorney General Pam Bondi. He picked the single bad one.

When the president announced Ms. Bondi’s departure from his Cabinet today, he offered the customary false praise and cold comfort that accompany such defenestrations. But the core of Mr. Trump’s dissatisfaction with the attorney general was apparently her failure to serve his need for revenge against his enemies. She did not prosecute enough of Mr. Trump’s adversaries, and the cases she did bring were failures.

In a Sept. 20, 2025, message to Ms. Bondi that President Trump posted on Truth Social,........

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