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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Pam Bondi was being ousted as his attorney general in a post on his social media platform, saying she’ll move to a role working in the private sector.

“We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future,” Trump said in the post.

Trump’s deputy attorney general and former personal attorney Todd Blanche will serve as acting Attorney General, the president said.

“And our Deputy Attorney General, and a very talented and respected Legal Mind, Todd Blanche, will step in to serve as Acting Attorney General,” Trump wrote.

Trump had raised potentially removing Bondi as attorney general in recent discussions with senior administration officials, sources told ABC News on Wednesday, amid months of mounting frustration that the Justice Department ​isn’t doing enough to target his political opponents for prosecution.

Blanche previously served as Trump’s defense attorney in the cases brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and former special counsel Jack Smith.

He has served as the nation’s No. 2 law enforcement official since being confirmed by the Senate in March of last year, and previously served in the Justice Department as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York.

Like Bondi, he has been vocal about his personal loyalties to President Trump and just last week appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he cheered the purge of prosecutors who previously worked on investigations into Trump and defended the DOJ from criticism by the MAGA base.

“So when people say, ‘Why aren’t you doing more?’ I welcome that criticism,” Blanche said. “Keep on putting pressure on us. Do you think it makes me upset when you go on X and say, ‘Come on, Blanche, why aren’t we doing more?’ You don’t know me. That’s what motivates me.”

The shakeup comes as Democrats and voting rights groups have expressed alarm that the White House may seek to use the DOJ and FBI to intervene in the midterm elections in November.

The president’s announcement brings an end to a rocky tenure for Bondi as the nation’s top law enforcement official, during which she aggressively sought to reshape the Justice Department as an enforcer of Trump’s agenda — repeatedly breaking with institutional norms implemented after the Watergate era that had encouraged independence from the political demands of the White House.

From her first days in office, Bondi emphasized her personal loyalty to Trump and echoed his longstanding grievances with the DOJ and FBI that the president and his allies have long accused of being “weaponized” against him.

During Trump’s first term in office he faced resistance from top officials at the DOJ and FBI against using the vast powers of their agencies to punish the president’s perceived enemies, but Bondi publicly embraced Trump’s demands to launch prosecutions against specific targets — to mixed effect.

The department’s attempts to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James fell apart after a federal judge ruled that the Trump-appointed prosecutor who indicted them was appointed unlawfully. Attempts to revive the case against James were twice rejected by a grand jury, sources previously told ABC News.

A separate effort by the U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro, to indict six Democratic lawmakers who posted a video urging military service members to refuse to follow unlawful orders was also rejected by a grand jury — despite Trump’s accusation the group was guilty of “treason.”

Pirro and the department are separately appealing an order from the chief judge in Washington, D.C., that has put on hold their attempt to launch a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, another frequent target of Trump’s ire.

In recent months, Trump has repeatedly vented frustration to aides regarding both the pace and the effectiveness of the Justice Department’s ability to target his foes — concerns he had also conveyed directly to Bondi — according to sources familiar with the matter.

Trump and other senior White House officials have also criticized Bondi’s handling of the DOJ’s files from its investigations into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which has consumed months of media attention and led to widespread backlash from some of Trump’s most devoted supporters.

Bondi’s appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee in February, in which she repeatedly yelled at lawmakers and sidestepped questions about the DOJ’s handling of the Epstein files and other sensitive matters, was also a subject of some criticism at the White House, sources say. Trump posted afterward on social media that Bondi was “fantastic” at the hearing.

Weeks later, a bipartisan group of lawmakers on the House Oversight committee voted to subpoena Bondi with a demand that she sit for a deposition on the Epstein files in mid-April.

ABC News’ Isabella Murray contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A 21-year-old will be placed under arrest in his hospital bed on charges he murdered a baby in Brooklyn by a stray bullet, the New York City Police Department said Thursday.

Amare Green allegedly fired shots from the back of a moped into a crowd in Williamsburg that struck and killed 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore and grazed her 2-year-old brother as they sat in a stroller on Wednesday afternoon. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called it a “devastating shooting” and said, “My heart aches for the parents impacted,” at a press conference on Thursday.

Green is a known associate of a street gang operating out of a public housing project in Brooklyn, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny said. Investigators are looking into whether the baby’s father may have been the intended target as part of a dispute with a rival gang.  

New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said detectives have identified the moped driver, but she declined to release a name. The driver is at large.

Tisch mentioned the impending arrest in a crime that shocked the city as she touted a continued drop in crime.  

The shooting was reported at about 1:20 p.m. on the corner of Humboldt and Moore streets in the East Williamsburg area, according to police.

Several adults, including two people with strollers, and several other children, were nearby when two males approached the intersection on a moped, Tisch said. The rear passenger on the moped pulled out a gun and fired at least two shots toward the corner, Tisch told reporters, citing surveillance video.

“Today our city suffered a horrifying, senseless tragedy: a 7-month-old child being pushed in a stroller along a busy Brooklyn sidewalk was shot and killed in broad daylight,” the police commissioner said.

The baby was taken to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

After the shooting, the two suspects collided with an oncoming car about two blocks away, police said. Both men were thrown from the moped. The rear passenger, who fits the description of the shooter, was taken to the hospital and is in police custody, Tisch said.

The other passenger took off, but police later located the moped.

Mamdani called the shooting a “devastating reminder” of the work that remains to be done to combat gun violence.

“A life that had barely begun was taken in an instant,” Mamdani said. “There are no words that can mend the heartbreak this family is feeling now.”

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(MESA COUNTY, Colo.) — A Colorado appeals court has overturned the prison sentence of Tina Peters, the former Colorado county clerk who was convicted in a scheme to breach voting systems in search of evidence of election fraud in 2020.

In its decision on Thursday, the appeals court upheld Peters’ conviction but ordered her case to be sent to a lower court for a judge to issue a new sentence.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW HAMPSHIRE) — New Hampshire Gov. Kelly Ayotte and her security detail were among those who assisted in a fiery crash at a New Hampshire toll plaza on Tuesday — with a state trooper on her detail and two other bystanders helping pull the driver from the burning vehicle, according to state police.

The driver of the car was “Bob’s Burgers” star Eugene Mirman, 51, of Massachusetts.

“Eugene was in a very scary car accident. He wants to thank the bystanders, state police, first responders and hospital staff who saved him. He is grateful to be on the mend. At this time, we kindly ask for privacy for Eugene and his family as he focuses on recovering from his injuries,” Mirman’s agent, Jay Gassner, said in a statement.

The “dangerous” collision occurred at the Bedford Toll Plaza on the Everett Turnpike shortly before noon, according to New Hampshire State Police Director Col. Mark Hall.

The vehicle, a 2026 Lucid electric vehicle, “immediately became engulfed in flames,” Hall said during a press briefing on Tuesday.

The governor and her security detail came upon the accident just after the vehicle crashed into the toll plaza, Hall said. A New Hampshire state trooper assigned to her detail and two other bystanders helped Mirman — the lone occupant — out of the burning vehicle through the window, according to Hall.

Hall said he is not identifying the trooper due to the nature of the assignment.

“It is a veteran trooper, and certainly their actions were heroic in what they did — without hesitation, put themselves in danger to render aid to somebody that clearly was in need of it,” Hall said.

“I’m proud of the State Trooper and the bystanders who saved a life at the scene of yesterday’s crash in Bedford,” Ayotte said in a statement. “It’s an example of the great work first responders do each day to keep New Hampshire safe and how Granite Staters always step up to help someone in need.”

The governor and other witnesses also provided assistance at the scene, according to Hall.

“The governor did get out of the vehicle and tried to assist in any way that she could,” Hall said, adding he believed she tried to get a fire extinguisher from a vehicle to help put the fire out.

Mirman was transported to an area hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

Photos released by police showed the burning vehicle and firefighters at the scene.

The crash remains under investigation.

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