President Trump’s triumphal entry into Justice Department headquarters darkened into an acid recitation of grievances against his enemies, as he demonstrated his power over a department that had tried and failed to hold him to account, reported The New York Times.
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, Mr. 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 previous leadership of trying to destroy him and declared former
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. the head of a “crime” family.
“Scum,” Mr. 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 Mr. 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
good will built up over generations,” Mr. 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 had 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,” Mr. Trump said, standing at a lectern flanked by
signs reading “fighting fentanyl.” Though he repeatedly railed against
corruption, his Justice Department recently moved
to dismiss a case against New York’s mayor and has drafted plans
to shrink
an anti-corruption unit.
As he assailed the investigations into him, Mr. Trump also
heaped praise on Aileen M. 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.”
“The case against me was bullshit,” Mr. Trump said, standing
in the building where the charges were approved.
His appearance in the Justice Department headquarters, while
not unheard of, was relatively rare for a president. Several of his recent
predecessors have made the trip to deliver remarks or preside over ceremonial
events, but none used the perch for aggressively partisan attacks as Mr. Trump
did.
The speech served to punctuate the president’s return to
power. Less than two years ago, in June 2023, his legal defense team trudged
into the building to be briefed on the details of criminal charges he would
face for hoarding classified materials at his house in Florida — the first of
his two federal indictments that summer.
Mr. Trump reflected on those experiences several times and
thanked his lawyers for their efforts in getting him off the hook. They had
less success in his felony trial in New York, where he was convicted on 34
counts related to hush money paid to a porn actress.
Mr. Trump eventually returned to the text of his speech, and
to the theme of crime-fighting, vowing to crack down on distributors of
fentanyl and reduce the number of overdose deaths from the drug by 50 percent.
One of the keys to doing so, he said, was to appeal to the
vanity of drug users. “You lose your look,” he said. “Everyone’s vain. They
don’t want to lose their look.”
His digressive style gradually dampened the enthusiasm of
many in the friendly crowd, who began scrolling their phones, particularly during
his meandering description of the college basketball coach Bobby Knight. But
they perked up when he reverted to bombast.
Mr. Trump accused judges who have ruled against him of being
“corrupt,” even as he chastised critics of Ms. Cannon and her rulings in his
favor, saying they sought undue influence. And he threatened to punish Biden
administration officials who were responsible for the chaotic withdrawal from
Afghanistan and those he falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election.
“These are people that are bad people, really bad people,”
he said.
During his first several weeks in power, Mr. 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 application of justice — and forced
out those standing
in the way.
As a general rule, presidents are wary of injecting politics
into the agency’s work. But Mr. Trump, who was twice indicted by the
department, views it 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?” Mr. Trump mused, as he
recounted his decision to deliver a speech inside the Justice Department.
“And then I realized, it’s not only appropriate, I think
it’s really important,” he added.
The event had many trappings of a Trump campaign rally,
including the music, 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 Mr. Trump controls through loyal appointees.
Mr. Trump’s first two warm-up speakers, Kash Patel, the
F.B.I. director, and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, offered a
cheerful and cherry-picked recitation of the department’s accomplishments under
Mr. 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.
Mr. Blanche, a former federal prosecutor who served as the
lead attorney in Mr. 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.
Mr. Trump, he said, “is a complete inspiration to me.”
Pam Bondi, the attorney general, echoed Mr. Blanche, calling
Mr. 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.
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