WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥 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, decrying in often profane terms his adversaries and casting himself as a victim of unfair and biased prosecutions.
The speech was meant to rally support for 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 .
The venue selection for the speech underscores Trump's keen interest in the department and desire to exert influence over it following criminal investigations that shadowed his first four years in office and subsequent campaign. The visit, the first by Trump and the first by any president in a decade, brought him into the belly of an institution he has disparaged in searing terms for years but one that he has sought to reshape by and members of his personal defense team in top leadership positions.
鈥淲e 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," Trump said in a wide-ranging speech that touched on everything from Russia's war against Ukraine to the price of eggs.
"It鈥檚 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.鈥
Although there's some precedent for presidents to speak to the Justice Department workforce from the building's ceremonial Great Hall, 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 and because his remarks are likely to feature an airing of grievances over his exposure to the criminal justice system 鈥 including in 2022 of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, for classified documents.
Trump's visit also comes at a time when has asserted that the department even as critics assert 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 President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, was known to be fraught in part because of special counsel investigations that Garland oversaw into and into 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.
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 He also endured difficult relationships with his first two handpicked attorneys general 鈥 immediately after the 2018 midterm election, and weeks after publicly disputing Trump's bogus claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Arriving for a second term in January fresh off that reaffirmed a president's unshakable control of the Justice Department, Trump has appeared determined to clear from his path any potential obstacles, including by appointing Bondi 鈥 a former Florida attorney general who was part of Trump鈥檚 defense team at his first impeachment trial 鈥 and , another close ally, to serve as his FBI director.
At her January confirmation hearing, Bondi appeared to endorse Trump's false claims of mass voter fraud in 2020 by refusing to answer directly whether Trump had lost to Biden. She also echoed his position that he had been unfairly 鈥渢argeted鈥 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 Biden, Garland and Vice President Kamala Harris from a Justice Department wall upon arriving.
鈥淲e 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,鈥 Bondi said in a recent Fox interview with Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump.
Even before Bondi had been confirmed, the Justice Department who served on special counsel Jack Smith's team, which charged 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 who worked on investigations into , when a mob of Trump's supporters in an effort to halt the certification of the electoral vote, and fired prosecutors who had participated in the cases. And they've ordered the dismissal of a criminal case by saying the charges had handicapped the Democrat鈥檚 ability to partner in the Republican administration鈥檚 fight against illegal immigration.
Leavitt is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
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