President Donald Trump used a rare speech at the Justice Department to dredge up his grievances regarding the DOJ, from its prosecution of him to its handling of Hunter Biden‘s laptop.
“As we begin a proud new chapter in the chronicles of American justice, we’re turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization, and surrender to violent criminals,” Trump told a crowd gathered at the DOJ headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C. on Friday. “We’re restoring fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law.”
During his hourlong speech, Trump contended that last year’s election provided him with a mandate to launch a “far-reaching investigation into the corruption of our system” to “expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct.”
Trump also underscored, for example, his administration’s termination of security clearances for former administration officials — including former special counsel Jack Smith, who personally prosecuted him, and those of former intelligence officials who disputed the authenticity of the younger Biden’s laptop during the 2020 campaign. Those officials had argued the laptop was the product of Russian disinformation.
Trump similarly mentioned the 2016 campaign, after which he fired former FBI Director James Comey after Comey insisted that the bureau remain independent from the White House.
“I will tell you this — a great honor to fire James Comey,” Trump said. “A great, great honor. There was no better day. A lot of people said that’s too bad you did that … and you know what, a year later, they said that actually saved the administration.”
In addition to praising White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller as an “unsung hero” and former national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn as a “patriot,” Trump praised Judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed the classified documents case brought against him by Smith. He also called the matter “bulls***” and claimed criticism of her should be illegal. Flynn was fired during Trump’s first administration for lying about his interactions with former Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak.
At the same time, Trump used the speech to criticize former President Joe Biden for his reported reliance on an auto-pen to sign presidential material and the media for being “political arms of the Democrat Party.”
“Maybe it is not even valid,” Trump said of Biden. “Who is getting him to sign? He had no idea what the hell he was doing. If he did, all these bad things wouldn’t be happening.”
En route to deliver his speech, Attorney General Pam Bondi showed Trump his inaugural portrait, which is now displayed at the Justice Department.
“That’s a rough picture,” Trump said.
Onstage, Bondi referenced 180 kilograms of artificial fentanyl to demonstrate the drug’s deadliness and Trump’s endeavor to counter its distribution in the U.S.
“We are so proud to work at the directive of Donald Trump,” Bondi said.
Trump’s speech at the Justice Department punctuates the president’s takeover of the department that led two federal prosecutions against him after his first administration. Both of these prosecutions have been dropped in keeping with the precedent that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
His appearance was unusual, considering most presidents try to permit the department to operate independently from politics. The last time a president spoke there was former President Barack Obama in 2014 to announce new guidance concerning intelligence gathering.
Since his inauguration, Trump has sought to reform the department, demoting attorneys, for instance, who prosecuted him and assisting people charged with Jan. 6 related offenses. The president referred to those convicted or charged offenders as “political prisoners” and “hostages.”
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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previewed Trump’s speech as an opportunity to emphasize his priority of “restoring law and order to our country.”
“In the last four years under the Biden administration, we unfortunately saw a Department of Justice that was weaponized against Americans for their political ideologies,” Leavitt told reporters outside the West Wing on Friday. “It was not focused on fighting violent crime and restoring law and order and public safety.”
