ATF chief legal counsel fired by Bondi in latest Justice Department shakeup

"Earlier today, I was served official notice from the Attorney General of the United States that I was being removed from my position as the Chief Counsel of ATF and my employment with the Department of Justice terminated," Pamela Hicks posted on her LinkedIn page on Thursday, confirming the termination. 

"Serving as ATF Chief Counsel has been the highest honor of my career and working with the people at ATF and throughout the Department has been a pleasure," Hicks continued in her LinkedIn post. "I thank my colleagues for their friendship and partnership over the years." 

A source familiar with the termination said Hicks was escorted out of the ATF building upon her termination. 

"ATF respects the rights of all our employees," ATF told Fox News Digital when asked about Hicks' termination. "As a general policy, ATF does not comment on personnel matters, including but not limited to, specific personnel issues, actions, or the existence of ongoing investigations."

Bondi, who was confirmed as the nation's 87th attorney general on Feb. 5, joined the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) near Washington, D.C., on Thursday, where she remarked that the sheer "volume" of political weaponization in the DOJ left over from the Biden administration concerned her. 

"What concerned me the most? It's the volume of how bad it was, and it still is," she said while speaking with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on a live episode of his podcast, "Verdict." "We're working on it. It's day by day by day, but we've got a team of great people. And on day one, I issued 14 executive orders. And number one is the weaponization ends. And it ends now. And that's what we did." 

Bondi added that the state of the DOJ was "worse" than she expected. 

"Worse meaning, that department had completely lost its mission of fighting violent crime," she said of the DOJ. "Look what they did to President Trump. Look at the weaponization."