Top White House officials encouraged potential Bondi replacement to make case to Trump for AG job: Sources

FIRST ON FOX: Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche huddled with President Donald Trump in the hours after Pam Bondi was forced out last week to make his pitch for the job full-time, Fox News Digital confirmed. 

Blanche was encouraged by top White House officials to speak with the president while other names, like Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, briefly circulated as possible contenders, two sources familiar told Fox News Digital. During that conversation, Blanche has made his case for why he should be the next attorney general.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to Fox News Digital that the president and his then-deputy attorney general had spoken on Thursday, as did a source familiar with Blanche’s movements that day. 

Trump announced Bondi’s departure from the Justice Department and in the same social media post last Thursday said that Blanche would be taking over the role in an acting capacity, as Fox News and Fox News Digital previously reported.

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The next moves could prove crucial for Blanche if he wants to clinch the president’s nomination — and with the countdown ticking to the midterm elections, he only has a few months to convince the president he can lead the roughly 120,000-employee DOJ before a potential party power change in Congress.

“It’s really Todd’s role to lose at this point,” one of the sources who spoke with Fox News Digital said. 

A 30-year department veteran, however, speculated that Blanche won’t get the nomination and will continue to run the DOJ in an acting capacity.

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“The safest thing for Trump to do is just to keep Blanche, the ultimate loyalist, in place as Acting, at least through the midterms, and avoid a confirmation fight,” former DOJ prosecutor Kevin Flynn told Fox News Digital. “In terms of advancing Trump’s retribution agenda, I think Blanche could do pretty much everything as Acting [Attorney General] as a confirmed AG could do.”

Trump fired Bondi on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, during an Oval Office meeting ahead of his speech to the nation on the war in Iran, Fox News Digital first reported a day after her ouster.

Trump confirmed her departure on Truth Social at 1:17 pm, roughly 45 minutes after the report became public. 

In the hours after Bondi was dismissed and before Trump made his official DOJ personnel announcement, Blanche allegedly had a consequential conversation with the president where he was informed he would be acting attorney general. Blanche lobbied to get the full-time position in a following discussion, one source familiar said. 

They also said that Blanche went to the White House a few times for various reasons in the days after he became acting AG.

The other source said it was this follow-up conversation that provided the president with the confidence to give Blanche the nod — at least for now.

Trump told his one-time personal attorney, “Here’s your audition,” the source paraphrased.

Blanche “got a call from POTUS after leaving a podcast taping on Thursday following the report on Fox,” a spokesperson for the Justice Department told Fox News Digital.

When Leavitt was asked whether the two had chatted on Thursday, the president’s spokesperson replied, “Yes, they spoke.”

The White House would comment on what the two discussed last week and whether Blanche made his case for a promotion.

DOJ Office of Public Affairs Director Emily Covington pushed back later Saturday in comment to Fox News Digital, saying Blanche never pitched himself to the president.

“Fox never reached out to DOJ for comment on this patently false accusation from two ‘sources.’ At no point did Todd Blanche pitch himself to the President. He was told he would serve as Acting AG, that is all. Anyone who claims another conversation took place is misinformed at best or purposefully lying at worst,” Covington said.

Fox News Digital had reached out to the Department of Justice multiple times ahead of publication regarding the substance of the discussions. At the time, the DOJ declined to comment on what the two had discussed last week. 

Now it’s up to Blanche to prove he’s up for the job full-time. 

His first test was a Tuesday afternoon press conference focused on Trump’s push to crack down on fraud.

Blanche likely passed the pulse test as he showered praise on the president and said there would be no love lost if he weren’t selected to be the next attorney general. “I love working for President Trump,” he said. “It’s the greatest honor of a lifetime. And if President Trump chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I’ll say, ‘Thank you very much, I love you, sir.'”

He got to work right away shaping the DOJ. 

On Thursday, Blanche announced his appointment of Trent McCotter as the principal associate deputy attorney general. He also stood up the new DOJ fraud division at Tuesday’s press conference and put Colin McDonald in charge as assistant attorney general for the Fraud Division.

Additionally, he took two trusted advisers with him to the attorney general’s office, Shane Hedges and James McHenry.

Blanche will likely need to differentiate himself from Bondi and distance himself from her failures — namely, the Jeffrey Epstein files debacle — if he wants longevity in the role, one of the sources familiar told Fox News Digital.

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In February 2025, Bondi said she had the Epstein files on her desk. A trickle of releases over the next year would yield no new investigations or prosecutions related to the sex trafficker’s crimes and left Americans unsatisfied. 

The source familiar said every move Bondi made after that was an effort to “clean up” her broken promise to release the Epstein client list. 

Convincing Trump he’s the right guy for the job is only the first hurdle. Blanche would also need to get past Congress and a confirmation process that is sure to be grueling. 

Bondi passed with a Senate vote of 54–46, with all 53 Republicans and lone Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., voting for her to be attorney general. Every other Democrat voted against her confirmation. 

Blanche, with the legacy of Bondi tied to his tenure in the Trump administration, could face an uphill battle even with some Republicans who have grown critical of the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files.