(AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general.

Trump in a social media post named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.

It marks the end of a contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.

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Bondi’s public embrace of the president marked a sharp departure from her predecessors.

Past attorney generals generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions.

But Bondi postured herself as Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.

She called for an end to the “weaponization” of law enforcement that she said occurred under the Biden administration, though her critics said she was the one who had politicized the agency to do the president’s bidding.

Bondi’s ousting follows a turbulent release of the Epstein files.

The Justice Department’s review and release of Epstein files frustrated members of Congress, who accused the department of hiding certain documents, over-redacting files and, in other cases, failing to redact sensitive information about the victims.

The department denied that it redacted documents in order to protect people and that it improperly withheld certain material. Still, it caused a series of headaches for the Trump administration.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche thanks Trump and compliments Bondi:

“Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Blanche wrote in a post on X, after saying that Bondi led the department with “strength and conviction.”

“We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe,” Blanche said.

Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will become the acting head of the Justice Department, who is he?

Blanche is a former federal prosecutor who worked as Trump’s criminal defense attorney in two cases brought by the department under President Joe Biden’s administration.

He was also a key figure on the president’s defense team in the hush money case against Trump in New York.

Blanche became second in command behind Bondi at the Justice Department last year.

Trump says Attorney General Pam Bondi will leave the Department of Justice.

“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, after saying she’s been a “loyal friend.”

Trump said Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche will serve as acting attorney general.

Rep. Mace welcomes Bondi’s ousting

Republican Rep. Nancy Mace, in response to earlier reports that President Donald Trump was considering ousting Attorney General Pam Bondi, said in a statement Thursday: “I welcome it.”

“Bondi handled the Epstein Files in a terrible manner and seriously undermined President Trump,” said Mace in the statement, whose long been critical of the justice department over the release and review of the Jefferey Epstein files.

The announcement follows months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of files related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking investigation that made Bondi the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump.

She also struggled to satisfy Trump’s demands to prosecute his political rivals, with multiple investigations rejected b