WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s decision to remove Pam Bondi as attorney general delivers a new disruption to an already beleaguered U.S. Justice Department as it works to advance the administration’s policy goals and sometimes controversial prosecutions.

Trump announced Thursday that he’d ousted Bondi as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer following several high-profile stumbles in her efforts to carry out his agenda. He had expressed frustration with her lack of progress in prosecutions that he had demanded against his adversaries, while her handling of files related to cases involving the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein generated a rare bipartisan uproar.

Trump picked Bondi’s deputy, Todd Blanche, to take over as acting attorney general. He’s expected to serve until a new nominee by Trump is confirmed by the Senate. While Blanche is viewed as a steady hand at the department, the agency will still be facing uncertainty as Trump moves to find a permanent replacement for Bondi. The president has discussed naming Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to the position, according to people familiar with the matter.

Dave Aronberg, former state attorney for Florida’s Palm Beach County Florida, said during an interview on Bloomberg’s Balance of Power that whoever takes over for Bondi will meet the same fate, because the president has unrealistic expectations.

“Donald Trump expects that he can push a button and then have his enemies prosecuted,” Aronberg said, “but it’s not so easy.”

Aronberg said that while Trump may prefer an attorney general more in the mold of the late prosecutor and political fixer, Roy Cohn, the failed nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general suggests that kind of pick isn’t politically viable.

“Anyone who can get confirmed through the Senate is not going to be the type of attorney general that he’s going to want,” Aronberg said.

The initial challenges for Blanche will be to manage any personnel changes following Bondi’s departure, respond to ongoing controversies and develop closer relationships with key White House aides and other Cabinet officials, according to former Justice Department officials interviewed for this story.

In choosing Blanche, Trump elevated yet another one of his former defense lawyers to be the top U.S. law enforcer. Blanche served as Trump’s defense attorney in criminal cases relating to the 2020 election, his handling of classified documents and alleged hush-money payments.

Blanche had already begun to take a leading role to put the department on steadier footing in recent months after the first year of Trump’s second term, which saw dramatic policy changes, major public controversies and the departure of thousands of experienced prosecutors who were either fired or resigned.

Blanche played a pivotal role in helping Trump and the administration manage the Epstein controversy. He personally met with Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2021 and is serving a 20-year prison sentence. He interviewed her in prison in July during a deposition in which she said she never saw Trump do anything “inappropriate.” Maxwell was subsequently moved to a lower-security federal prison camp in Texas.

Blanche also worked to insulate the criminal division at the DOJ’s Washington headquarters from being caught up in politically controversial investigations and issued new policies to govern corporate enforcement actions, according to people familiar with the matter.

Current and former Justice Department officials said they don’t expect any sudden or significant changes to the agency’s work under Blanche. He’s largely been in line with Trump’s vision for the department and has spoken out repeatedly about his belief that previous Justice Department officials weaponized their powers against Trump and conservatives in recent years.

But the pressure will be on Blanche to make progress on Trump’s more controversial priorities, such as prosecuting his adversaries and suing states over their voting procedures heading into the mid-term elections.

Trump likely will be able to shield Blanche from criticism in the near term by blaming Bondi for existing problems, one of the former officials said. For example, criticism of Bondi flared over her handling of the release of millions of pages of documents related to investigations into Epstein.

Blanche started to emerge as the face of the department when it came to handling the release of the Epstein files after Bondi’s early missteps. But Bondi has been subpoenaed to give a private deposition to House lawmakers on April 14 regarding the matter. The top ranking Democrat on the panel said Thursday after her removal as attorney general that they still expect her to appear. It wasn’t immediately clear how her departure might affect the upcoming deposition or whether Blanche will now be called to testify.

Trump had also grown impatient with the slow pace of efforts to prosecute his perceived adversaries under Bondi.

Bondi had appointed one of Trump’s White House aides, Lindsey Halligan, last year to be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Within days, Halligan obtained grand jury indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James. But a federal judge ruled that Halligan was improperly appointed and dismissed the indictments. The Justice Department has appealed.

Conservative allies of Trump have demanded the Justice Department investigate what they believe was a sweeping decade-long conspiracy against him and prosecute former law enforcement and intelligence officials allegedly behind it.

Bondi directed prosecutors to use a grand jury to investigate claims made by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that former officials “manufactured and politicized intelligence to lay the groundwork for what was essentially a years-long coup against President Trump.” However, that investigation has yet to lead to any charges.

Blanche told the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas last week the Justice Department has “cleaned house” when it comes to purging Trump’s political enemies from its ranks.

Now the pressure will be on Blanche to do what Bondi was unable to do when it comes to meeting Trump’s other demands.

Former Justice Department prosecutor Evan Gotlob said there’s never really a “good time” to replace the attorney general. “The prosecutors, U.S. attorneys, the FBI agents — they get used to working a certain way under a certain administration,” said Gotlob, who served under the first Trump administration and during Joe Biden’s presidency. “Even if it’s the same administration, when you change the AG, priorities change.”

(Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Hadriana Lowenkron and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.)

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