President Donald Trump ushered in a new era at the Department of Justice on Friday, saying the department that once brought criminal charges against him would no longer be “weaponized” and instead concentrate its resources on illegal immigration and street crime.
Trump’s appearance inside the very building that led an investigation and prosecution of Trump during the last couple of years was momentous. It is rare for presidents to give remarks from inside the department’s Washington headquarters.
“We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls,” Trump said.
Trump and his attorney general, Pam Bondi, who spoke right before him, both recognized two mothers in the audience who lost their children to fentanyl, praised immigration hawk and deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, and cheered on the administration’s aggressive deportation operations.
Flanked by “fighting fentanyl” signs and a stack of faux packages of the illicit drug, Trump said that in the first two months of his administration, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration officers had seized “nearly 1 million deadly doses” of fentanyl.
“This department will not rest until we have ended the fentanyl epidemic in America once and for all,” Trump said.
Before Trump took the stage, newly confirmed Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said that in the last two months, DOJ prosecutors across the country have brought criminal cases against more than 6,600 illegal immigrants, nearly half of which were in Arizona.
FBI Director Kash Patel, who also addressed the audience, said violent crime had “exploded” and attributed it directly to “the border invasion that occurred.” The Biden administration became defined, in part, by its surges of illegal migration and lax border policies, but the FBI reported slight declines in violent crime in the United States last year.
The DOJ has since Day One of the Trump administration been laser-focused on immigration-related crime, including by waging legal fights with so-called sanctuary jurisdictions and redirecting valuable resources to combat transnational drug cartels and violent illegal immigrants.
But immigration, Trump’s signature issue during his campaign, was overshadowed at times during his speech on Friday by his bombastic diatribes condemning his political enemies.
Trump named former special counsel Jack Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, among others, calling them corrupt and “thugs” and vowing “accountability” for their unspecified alleged crimes. Smith was forced to drop both cases against Trump after he won reelection.
Trump said the classified documents case against him “was bulls***” and claimed prominent liberal attorney Norm Eisen, who has been leading numerous lawsuits against Trump’s executive actions, was “vicious and violent.”
“He’s been after me for nine years,” Trump said of Eisen, who helped lead Democrats’ first impeachment case against Trump.
Trump also chided the media and said CNN and MSNBC “write 97.6% bad” about him and do “illegal” work, a remark that comes as part of his intensifying battle with media outlets whose coverage Trump has disagreed with.
The crowd was full of dozens of supporters, from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to controversial interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin and right-wing influencer Benny Johnson.
Trump acknowledged law enforcement officers in the room, telling them to loud applause he “will always have [their] back.”
He reiterated his desire to expand capital punishment and seek the death penalty for people who kill police officers. Opponents of the death penalty have said Trump’s vision for it is at odds with legal precedents, so it remains unclear how successful he will be in fulfilling it. Sixteen federal executions have been carried out since 1988, 13 of which were during Trump’s first administration.
Trump emphasized “law and order,” though he once again carved out an exception for “J6 hostages.” The president drew widespread bipartisan criticism in January for pardoning Jan. 6 defendants, including those who were convicted of assaulting police officers during the Capitol attack.
TRUMP DOJ RISKS UNDERMINING INTEGRITY WITH ERIC ADAMS SAGA
His DOJ leadership team has been investigating and ousting employees at the DOJ and FBI who they feel acted overzealously during the four-year Jan. 6 inquiry.
The personnel action is part of Trump’s and Bondi’s broader plan to use what they have coined a “weaponization working group” to review investigative and prosecutorial activity against people on the Right, an effort that critics have said serves to perpetuate politicization at the DOJ rather than halt it.
