Former US Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was removed from her role last month, has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Her diagnosis came shortly after President Donald Trump ousted her from the post of America’s top law enforcement officer, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
Bondi, 60, told CBS she is undergoing treatment, which included surgery a few weeks ago.
She is continuing to work despite the diagnosis, and will be joining the White House’s new advisory council on AI, the Presidential Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
Thyroid cancer has a five-year survival rate of over 98% and most forms of it are treatable and permanently curable, according to the Cleveland Clinic. It’s not clear what stage of cancer Bondi has.
When Bondi left the Department of Justice at the beginning of April, she said she was excited to be entering a role in the private sector. Bondi’s inclusion on the president’s council, known as PCAST, is the first news of her work beyond the department.
“Pam has been an enormously valuable asset to the president’s team, and I’m thrilled for her and for all of us that she’s going to remain involved in confronting some of the most important issues the administration faces,” Vice-President JD Vance said in a statement.
Trump established PCAST by executive order in January 2025, describing its purpose to “unite the brightest minds from academia, industry, and government to guide our Nation through this critical moment by charting a path forward for American leadership in science and technology”.
The first members of the council were not announced until March 2026. They include major players in the science and technology industries, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.
Bondi, who has been fiercely loyal to Trump since his first term, is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on Friday over her handling of the Epstein files.
Both Bondi and Trump have received bipartisan criticism over the justice department’s release of the Epstein files, with some Democratic lawmakers arguing that important files were withheld from the public.
Bondi is one of four members of Trump’s cabinet to have left their positions so far this year. Prior to Bondi’s departure, Kristi Noem was removed as Secretary of Homeland Security and, Lori Chavez-DeRemer as labour secretary.
Most recently, Tulsi Gabbard said last week she was resigning from her post as director of national intelligence, citing her husband’s recent bone cancer diagnosis.
