Trump pledges to ‘expel rogue actors’ in political speech at Justice Department
He decried his adversaries, often in profane terms, and cast himself as a victim of unfair and biased prosecutions.
US President Donald Trump used a triumphant visit to the Justice Department on Friday to air a litany of grievances about the criminal investigations that threatened to torpedo his political career.
He decried his adversaries, often in profane terms, and cast himself as a victim of unfair and biased prosecutions.
The speech was meant to rally support for Mr Trump’s tough-on-crime agenda.
But it also functioned as victory lap after he emerged legally and politically unscathed from two federal prosecutions that were dismissed after his election win last year.
The venue underscored Mr Trump’s keen interest in the department and desire to exert influence over it, after criminal investigations that shadowed his first four years in office and subsequent campaign.
The visit, the first by Mr Trump and the first by any president in a decade, took him into the belly of an institution he has disparaged in searing terms for years
It is also one that he has sought to reshape by installing loyalists and members of his personal defence team in top leadership positions.
“We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government.
“We will expose, very much expose, their egregious crimes and severe misconduct, of which was levels never seen anything like it,” Mr Trump said in a wide-ranging speech that touched on everything from Russia’s war against Ukraine to the price of eggs.
“It’s going to be legendary. And going to also be legendary for the people that are able to seek it out and bring justice.
“We will restore the scales of justice in America, and we will ensure that such abuses never happen again in our country.
“Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the department of injustice. But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they are never going to come back and never coming back.
“So now, as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.”
Although there is some precedent for presidents to speak to the Justice Department workforce from the building’s ceremonial Great Hall, Mr Trump’s trip two months into his second term was particularly striking because of his unique status as a onetime criminal defendant indicted by the agency he is now poised to address.
It was also striking because his remarks are likely to feature an airing of grievances over his exposure to the criminal justice system – including an FBI search in 2022 of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for classified documents.
Mr Trump’s visit also comes at a time when attorney general Pam Bondi has said that the department needs to be depoliticised, even as critics say agency leadership is injecting politics into the decision-making process.
The relationship between presidents and Justice Department leaders has waxed and waned over the decades, depending on the personalities of the officeholders and the sensitivity of the investigations that have dominated the day.
The dynamic between Joe Biden, a Democrat, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, was known to be fraught in part because of special counsel investigations that Mr Garland oversaw into Mr Biden’s mishandling of classified information and into the firearms and tax affairs of his son Hunter.
When it comes to setting its agenda, the Justice Department historically takes a cue from the White House but looks to maintain its independence on individual criminal investigations.
Mr Trump has upended such norms.
He encouraged specific investigations during his first term and tried to engineer the firing of Robert Mueller, the special counsel assigned to investigate ties between Russia and Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign.
He also endured difficult relationships with his first two handpicked attorneys general – Jeff Sessions was fired immediately after the 2018 midterm election, and William Barr resigned weeks after publicly disputing Mr Trump’s bogus claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Arriving for a second term in January fresh from a landmark Supreme Court opinion that reaffirmed a president’s unshakable control of the Justice Department, Mr Trump has appeared determined to clear from his path any potential obstacles.
These include the appointment of Ms Bondi, a former Florida attorney general who was part of Mr Trump’s defence team at his first impeachment trial, and Kash Patel, another close ally, to serve as his FBI director.
At her January confirmation hearing, Ms Bondi appeared to endorse Mr Trump’s false claims of mass voter fraud in 2020 by refusing to answer directly whether Mr Trump had lost to Mr Biden.
She also echoed his position that he had been unfairly “targeted” by the Justice Department, despite the wealth of evidence prosecutors say they amassed.
She regularly praises him in Fox News Channel appearances and proudly noted that she had removed portraits of Mr Biden, Mr Garland and former vice president Kamala Harris from a Justice Department wall.
“We all adore Donald Trump, and we want to protect him and fight for his agenda. And the people of America overwhelmingly elected him for his agenda,” Ms Bondi said in a recent Fox interview with Mr Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
Even before Ms Bondi had been confirmed, the Justice Department fired department employees who served on special counsel Jack Smith’s team, which charged Mr Trump with plotting to overturn the 2020 election and with hoarding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
Both cases were dismissed last November in line with longstanding Justice Department policy against indicting sitting presidents.
Officials also demanded from the FBI lists of thousands of employees who worked on investigations into the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol, when a mob of Mr Trump’s supporters stormed the building in an effort to halt the certification of the electoral vote, and fired prosecutors who had participated in the cases.
And they have ordered the dismissal of a criminal case against New York mayor Eric Adams by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat’s ability to partner in the Republican administration’s fight against illegal immigration.
