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  "path": "/post/208563/donald-trump-replace-pam-bondi-pirro-zeldin-lee",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-02T19:52:02.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republican Party",
    "Donald Trump",
    "Department of Justice",
    "attorney general",
    "Pam Bondi",
    "Jeanine Pirro",
    "EPA",
    "Lee Zeldin",
    "Senate",
    "Mike Lee",
    "already swirling",
    "called",
    "make life easier for polluters",
    "Scott MacFarlane",
    "once bragged",
    "thwarted effort",
    "failed four separate times",
    "enraged",
    "told",
    "conspiracy theories",
    "shitposting"
  ],
  "textContent": "President Donald Trump has to nominate someone to replace Attorney General Pam Bondi and, big surprise: His options are all bad.\n\nAhead of Bondi’s ouster Thursday, reports were already swirling that a dissatisfied Trump was planning to tap Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, to replace her.\n\nSince taking on his role in January 2025, Zeldin has been a fierce supporter of Trump’s agenda, overseeing what he called “the largest act of deregulation in the history of the United States.”\n\nTo achieve the president’s energy production goals, Zeldin has tried to make life easier for polluters by eviscerating auto fuel standards, oil drilling limits, and the “endangerment finding” underlying emissions regulations. Under Zeldin, Trump’s EPA is overseeing a historic decline in enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws.\n\nZeldin has a legal background, and became the youngest attorney in New York state at the time in 2004, at the age of 23. He served in Congress from 2015 until 2023, where he supported Trump in both of his impeachments and voted against certifying the results of the 2020 election.\n\nBut there are other names being floated to replace Bondi.\n\nOne person being discussed as a potential new attorney general is Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, according to MeidasTouch’s Scott MacFarlane.\n\nThe former Fox News host Trump tapped for the top federal prosecutor in the nation’s capital would certainly be loyal: She once bragged about how far she went to push Trump’s claims that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen.\n\nBut Pirro is mired in many of the same kinds of disasters that plagued Bondi’s reign. Pirro’s office was behind a thwarted effort to pursue a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, one of the president’s perceived enemies. Pirro’s office also failed four separate times to indict one woman accused of assaulting a federal agent. And in February, Pirro enraged the MAGA base when she warned citizens not to bring firearms to the District of Columbia.\n\nSome senators are hoping Trump will hear their pitch for Utah Senator Mike Lee as attorney general, two sources with knowledge of the matter told NOTUS. Lee is probably best known for posting MAGA conspiracy theories and shitposting online.\n\nLee spent several years as an attorney with a private law firm in appellate and Supreme Court litigation before serving for three years as an assistant U.S. attorney in Salt Lake City. He later held a one-year clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito.\n\nFor now, Trump has promoted Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to interim attorney general.",
  "title": "Who Will Trump Pick to Replace Pam Bondi?"
}