Attorney General Pam Bondi’s departure last week was the latest in a series of high-profile firings or resignations of America’s top law enforcement officer, from a key Watergate figure to a well-respected attorney whose differences with the president became irreconcilable.
Former President George Washington appointed Founding Father and former Virginia Gov. Edmund Randolph the nation’s first attorney general in 1789, and in the years since, there have been dozens of successors, some lost to history and others more memorable.
Eliot Richardson, the secretary of defense at the time of the Watergate burglary, was named to succeed Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, who resigned amid the scandal after reportedly being pressured by a member of the Watergate “plumbers” to assuage the situation.
“Plumbers” was the moniker for the group accused in the burglary at the DNC headquarters, then located at the Watergate Hotel in Foggy Bottom, D.C. They were organized by CIA officer E. Howard Hunt and FBI agent-turned-future conservative talk radio star G. Gordon Liddy. The name purportedly came from the dual meaning of “leaks” — political versus pipes.
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Kleindienst was playing golf at Burning Tree in Bethesda, Md., in June 1972 when Liddy reportedly approached him to say that the Committee to Re-elect the President (Nixon’s committee) was involved in the burglary, according to an account from the UK Guardian.
Kleindienst reportedly told the G-man to get lost, and the federal investigation ensued as normal.
As the scandal raged on April 30, 1973, Nixon announced he had accepted the resignations of Kleindienst, and presidential assistants John Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman — and fired White House Counsel John Dean — who has often called President Donald Trump’s tenure worse than that of his old boss.
“Mr. Kleindienst asked to be relieved as Attorney General because he felt that he could not appropriately continue as head of the Justice Department now that it appears its investigation of the Watergate and related cases may implicate individuals with whom he has had a close personal and professional association,” Nixon said in a public letter that day.
Richardson’s tenure began thereafter and ended with one of the most significant executive branch departures in history: the “Saturday Night Massacre.”
On October 20, 1973, Nixon ordered Richardson to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox shortly after Cox subpoenaed the Oval Office recordings. Richardson, who appointed Cox and reportedly pledged not to fire him without cause, refused and resigned.
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Nixon then asked Richardson’s deputy, William Ruckelshaus, to fire Cox, and he also resigned instead of carrying out the order.
Nixon then ordered Ruckelshaus’ deputy, Solicitor General Robert Bork, who is better known for his unsuccessful nomination to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan, to fire Cox. Bork did so and reportedly considered resigning but stayed on at the urging of his predecessors to ensure stability at the DOJ.
That November, an LBJ-appointed federal judge found that Cox’s firing had been unlawful.
Nixon himself ultimately resigned almost one year later on August 9, 1974.
Richardson’s legacy became that of a cabinet official who, in times of crisis, sacrificed professional status for personal integrity, as described by the Constitution Center and others.
Alberto Gonzales was one of President George W. Bush’s closest advisers, going back to his time as Texas governor. He was also the first Hispanic attorney general and the highest-ranking Hispanic cabinet official until Trump named Marco Rubio to secretary of state in 2025.
Gonzales ultimately resigned the top cop post in 2007 amid mounting bipartisan criticism of the DOJ’s firing of several U.S. attorneys and allegations that he was not forthright during congressional inquiries about whether politics played a role in the firings.
Bush lamented his friend’s resignation, saying “it is sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.”
Gonzales faced mounting pressure and criticism amid the firings and regarding comments defending enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected terrorists.
He stated “I do not recall” or similar framings of the statement dozens of times during a contentious Senate hearing where he battled Republicans like Pennsylvania’s Arlen Specter and Democrats including California’s Dianne Feinstein.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., later confronted Gonzales over his responses.
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“You’ve answered ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I can’t recall’ to close to a hundred questions. You’re not familiar with much of the workings of your own department. And we still don’t have convincing explanations of the who, when and why, in regard to the firing of the majority of the eight U.S. attorneys,” Schumer fumed, according to a transcript posted to the left-wing outlet DemocracyNow.
In his testimony, Gonzales said U.S. Attorneys indeed serve at the pleasure of the president, and that the Justice Department makes “decisions based on the evidence, not whether the target is a Republican or a Democrat.”
“I know that I did not, and would not, ask for a resignation of any individual in order to interfere with or influence a particular prosecution for partisan political gain,” Gonzales said. “I also have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. Attorney for an improper reason.”
Bush nonetheless remained behind his pick, rebuking a “no confidence” resolution drafted by Schumer, Feinstein and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. as the controversy continued.
Ultimately, Gonzales announced on August 27, 2007, that he would be stepping down on September 17.
“Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government service as attorney general… let me say that it’s been one of my greatest privileges to lead the Department of Justice,” Gonzales said in his resignation announcement.
“I have great admiration and respect for the men and women who work here. I have made a point as attorney general to personally meet as many of them as possible, and today I want to again thank them for their service to our nation.”
Former Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions was the first in the upper chamber to endorse then-developer Donald Trump in his 2016 presidential bid.
The immigration enforcement hardliner and Trump loyalist, however, saw his relationship with the new president fray early in their term.
Sessions recused himself from the Trump-Russia investigation, citing his own campaigning for Trump amid reports he also met personally with Russian envoy Sergey Kislyak.
The recusal incensed Trump and led him to regularly bash Sessions in the press, and also to blame Sessions for the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller III as special counsel in the Russia case.
Trump also faulted Sessions for declining to criminally pursue Hillary Clinton.
Sessions’ tenure ended the day after Republicans lost the House in the 2018 midterm elections, but left the Alabamian with a successful professional record in reversing Obama-era policies and cracking down on sanctuary city policies.
But Trump’s firing of Sessions only further invigorated his Democratic critics, as New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker called it an “alarming development that brings us one step closer to a constitutional crisis.”
Booker claimed Trump fired Sessions because he was scared Mueller would “implicat[e]” him in the Russia investigation.
Former Attorney General William Barr resigned from his second tenure as the nation’s top cop in December 2020, amid disputes over whether the prior month’s election had been subject to widespread fraud.
Barr, who previously served under President George H.W. Bush, appeared to irritate Trump when he told The Associated Press he had not seen “fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
In announcing the departure, Trump tweeted that he had a “nice meeting” with Barr and that his relationship “has been a very good one; he has done an outstanding job.”
Barr also touted Trump’s first-term record amid what he called a “partisan onslaught” and “relentless, implacable resistance.”
In comments to NBC News in 2022 ahead of the release of his book “One Damn Thing After Another,” Barr said he told Trump at the White House that he understood the president was frustrated with him, and that he was willing to submit his resignation.
“Accepted,” Trump supposedly said, but the president himself reportedly claimed he asked for Barr’s resignation, not that the AG quit.
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“The absurd lengths to which he took his stolen election claim led to the rioting on Capitol Hill,” Barr said, while adding that Trump’s actions still wouldn’t reach the legal level of “incitement” as claimed by Democrats.
In his resignation letter, Barr applauded Trump’s ability to “weather” the Russia investigation and Democrats’ attempts to “cripple if not oust [the] administration,” and said the president restored the U.S. military and curbed illegal immigration.
The first attorney general of the modern era to be ousted was Harry Daugherty, a member of President Warren Harding’s administration.
Daugherty was part of the so-called “Ohio Gang” of longtime Harding confidants from his home state.
Daugherty’s fall began amid the Teapot Dome Scandal — the most infamous incident prior to Watergate — which led to the imprisonment of Interior Secretary Albert Fall.
Fall was implicated in low- or no-bid oil leases at Teapot Dome, Wyoming, in 1923, and jailed for accepting bribes from energy companies.
Daugherty was later investigated for allegedly failing to prosecute people involved in Teapot Dome, and was allegedly implicated in a handful of other scandals, including being charged with conspiracy amid the sale of illegal liquor permits during prohibition.
He was also accused of influence peddling and members of the “Ohio Gang” were accused of selling government appointments.
Daugherty’s brother Mal was president of a bank, which was later closed by the state of Ohio after the Senate was unable to “pry” during its investigation into Attorney General Daugherty, according to a 1930 TIME report.
The sibling’s bank recorded “heavy withdrawals” during that time, which caught the attention of regulators in Columbus.
Harry Daugherty ultimately met his ouster after Harding died in office in August 1923.
New President Calvin Coolidge booted him from the DOJ over loss of public trust and refusal to turn over departmental records regarding alleged corruption.
Daugherty was never convicted.
