(SeaPRwire) –   On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and his former personal legal counsel, will take over the role of acting attorney general after Pam Bondi was removed from her post.

In a Truth Social post revealing the leadership shift, the president described Blanche as “a very talented and respected legal mind”.

“Pam Bondi led this Department with strength and conviction and I’m grateful for her leadership and friendship,” Blanche wrote on X in response to the President’s announcement. “Thank you to President Trump for the trust and the opportunity to serve as Acting Attorney General. We will continue backing the blue, enforcing the law, and doing everything in our power to keep America safe.”

Before joining the Department of Justice, 51-year-old Blanche represented the president in three of the four criminal cases brought against him. He acted as Trump’s lead defense attorney during the hush-money trial, where Trump was ultimately convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide a 2016 payout to an adult film actress. He also defended Trump, with far more favorable outcomes, in the federal cases filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith over Trump’s purported attempts to overturn the 2020 election and improper handling of classified documents. Both cases were dismissed after Trump won reelection in 2024.

After Trump returned to the White House last year, he nominated Blanche for the role of deputy attorney general, the second-highest position at the Justice Department. Blanche was confirmed to the post by the Senate last March.

Over the course of Blanche’s tenure as deputy attorney general, the Justice Department’s longstanding independence from the White House has eroded, as Trump has pushed to turn the agency into a tool to prosecute his political opponents.

While speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, last week, Blanche boasted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had “cleaned house,” dismissing every single person who worked on cases against the President.

“There isn’t a single man or woman with a gun, federal agent, still in that organization that had anything to do with the prosecution of President Trump,” Blanche said.

Three former FBI agents who worked on cases against Trump and were subsequently ousted have since cited Blanche’s remarks as evidence in a lawsuit against the Administration, in which they claim the firings were “illegal.”

Blanche also led the Justice Department’s discussions last year with Ghislaine Maxwell, the long-time associate of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, and has defended the department against criticism over its management of the release of files related to the disgraced financier.

“I’m not trying to defend Epstein. I’m not,” Blanche said during an appearance on former Trump administration spokesperson Katie Miller’s podcast last month. “I do defend the work that that this department is doing today, right now, which is going after every single perpetrator anywhere. And if there’s a narrative that exists that we’re ignoring Epstein victims, that is false.”

Blanche worked as a federal prosecutor for years before taking roles at several high-profile law firms, including WilmerHale and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. In April 2023, he became a founding partner at Blanche Law, his final position before Trump selected him to join the Justice Department.

Trump’s decision to remove Bondi as Attorney General comes after he is widely reported to have grown increasingly frustrated with her failure to meet his demands to target his political enemies, as well as her handling of the Epstein case.

Following Trump’s announcement, Bondi said that over the next month she “will be working tirelessly to transition the office of Attorney General to the amazing Todd Blanche before moving to an important private sector role.”

How long Blanche will serve as acting Attorney General remains unclear. Trump is reportedly considering nominating Lee Zeldin, the current head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as Bondi’s permanent successor.