Trump airs grievances against his enemies in speech to Justice Department
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s triumphal entry into Justice Department headquarters Friday darkened into an airing of grievances against his enemies, as he demonstrated his power over a department that tried and failed to hold him to account.
The event, held in the Great Hall of the Justice Department, was billed as a major policy address to reposition the department from the purported political “weaponization” of the Biden era to a renewed focus on crime, punishment and fighting drugs.
But in an hourlong speech, Trump veered from his prepared remarks to lash out at lawyers and former prosecutors by name in a venue dedicated to the impartial administration of justice. He also accused the department’s Biden-era leadership of trying to destroy him, and declared former President Joe Biden the head of a “crime” family.
“Scum,” Trump called his adversaries – in the same room where Attorney General Robert Jackson delivered a tone-setting 1940 speech urging prosecutors be animated by “fair play” rather than a blind drive to win.
If Trump’s delivery verged on free association, his message was unmistakable: The president intends to bend the vast powers of federal law enforcement to his will – in the pursuit of an anti-crime agenda and, perhaps, vengeance.
“Unfortunately in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and goodwill built up over generations,” Trump told an audience of supporters and law enforcement officials. “They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.”
He implored his political appointees at the department not to “be deflected” by critics in enforcing his agenda. He also suggested he was preparing new executive actions to personally target the “violent vicious lawyers” who prosecuted him or opposed his policies in court.
“We’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization and surrender to violent criminals, and we’re restoring fair, equal and impartial justice,” said Trump, standing at a lectern flanked by signs reading “fighting fentanyl.”
As he assailed the investigations into him, Trump also heaped praise on Aileen Cannon, the federal judge in Florida who dismissed the criminal charges against him over the handling of classified documents, calling her “the absolute model of what a judge should be.”
During his first several weeks in power, Trump and his appointees have torn down many of the barriers that have long existed between the White House and the Justice Department to prevent political interference in the impartial application of justice.
As a general rule, presidents are wary of injecting politics into the agency’s work and do not make frequent visits to the department’s headquarters, let alone deliver speeches there.
But Trump, who was twice indicted by the Department of Justice, views the agency as the center of “deep state” resistance to him. For a man who long ago dispensed with the notion of an independent Justice Department, the visit was as much an expression of conquest and vindication as it was a venue for a policy-focused speech.
“Is it appropriate that I do it?” Trump said he asked department officials when they asked him to give the speech at headquarters.
“And then I realized, it’s not only appropriate, I think it’s really important,” he said he responded.
The event had many trappings of a Trump campaign rally, including the warmup playlist, even if set against the backdrop of the department’s marble-clad inner sanctum. The setting was part of an effort to emphasize the power of the institution Trump controls through loyal appointees.
Trump’s first two warmup speakers, Kash Patel, the FBI director, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, offered a cheerful and cherry-picked recitation of the department’s accomplishments under Trump thus far – the acceleration of immigration enforcement, efforts to punish academic institutions that do not bow to the administration’s demand to purge diversity and inclusion programs, and intensifying efforts to fight fentanyl trafficking.
Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who served as the lead attorney in Trump’s two federal criminal cases, began by expressing his commitment to upholding the best traditions of the department. But he quickly shifted gears to profess personal loyalty to the president – something that none of his predecessors in the Biden administration ever did.
Trump, he said, “is a complete inspiration to me.”
Pam Bondi, the attorney general, echoed Blanche, calling Trump “the greatest president in the history of our country” and saying she works “at the directive of Donald Trump.” Her words were another nod to the Trump administration’s aggressive effort to have a Justice Department that does not operate at arm’s length from the White House, but under its direct command.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.