CNN
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President Donald Trump exced the Justice Department prosecutors who investigated him and vowed to use it to target his own enemies in a campaign-style speech at the department’s historic conference on Friday.
The hour-long speech served both as a victory lap to break two federal criminal cases brought against him by the Biden administration, and as a condemnation against both staff members who touched on those cases (parts of which were fired from the DOJ).
Trump is a departure from how the former president dealt with the Justice Department. White houses of the past usually have limited interactions with the department, making their work unpopular. But Trump declared on Friday he was “the highest law enforcement officer in our country.”
The president has spoken at the Justice Department about law enforcement efforts and related policies, but the public broadcast of Trump’s grievances has been unprecedented. He instead had the opportunity to criticize the courts, oppose both his political opponents and the media, and threaten retaliation.
Before he left the stage, Trump said he questioned his appearance before the Justice Department. “I said, is it appropriate for me to do that?” the president said, “Then I thought it wasn’t just appropriate, it was really important, and I never did it again.”
Here are some key points from Trump’s speech:
As soon as Trump reached the auditorium, he vowed to Biden-era officials to launch a diatrib to act in partisan and corrupt ways, in his view, and to expel “cheating and corrupt forces” from the government.
“We expose and expose their terrible crimes and serious misconduct.
The president has pledged “full accountability” for “mistakes and abuse” for his campaign’s work with Russia in the 2016 presidential election and his campaign’s work to overturn the 2020 election and the 2020 election and misconception classification documents.
He specifically added that he believes the Department of Justice “persulted my family, staff and supporters and attacked my home, Mar Lago.” (The FBI search at Trump’s Florida Real Estate was conducted in accordance with a search warrant.)
The president did not limit his anger to officials in the last administration. He also denounced the media – even pointing to a reporter sitting in the room. Trump suggested that the way media explained the election could be “illegal.”
A passionate review for his lawyers and political allies
Trump also used his moment to celebrate allies who have been caught up in a variety of legal issues in recent years, including those in the US Capitol rioters, on January 6, 2021.
The audience had a small number of career employees, but mostly consisted of political supporters, including his former national security adviser Mike Flynn, who was indicted by the Department of Justice during his first term, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who was investigated by the DOJ but not accused.
“By the way, there’s someone who’s gone through hell. He shouldn’t. He’s a patriot. He’s gone through hell,” Trump said of Flynn.
The president also paid off in his top DOJ position by providing a passionate review of two lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Beaube, who represented him in some of his criminal cases, including issues with classified documents.
“These guys didn’t wither,” he said. “They weren’t shy. They fought. They weren’t afraid. And they were wonderful – Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Deputy Principal Attorney (General) Emil Bove.”
“Thank you both,” Trump said. “They are amazing people.”
However, his message was generally clear. “I’m very proud of the people in this room, but first, I have to be honest about the lies and abuse that have occurred within these walls,” Trump insisted. “Unfortunately, in recent years, hacking and corrupt groups of extremists within the US government’s ranks have eliminated the creation of trust and goodwill for generations.”
When he opposed the Biden Department of Justice, Trump spent quite a bit of time in his speech, which raised praise for a federal judge in Florida.
“We had a great judge in Florida, but her name is Irene Cannon,” Trump said. He went on to insist that he didn’t know her and never spoke to her. (Cannon said the same thing.)
“I appointed her,” Trump said. He opposed an unknown “public relations lawyer” who criticized Cannon’s handling of historic cases. “They said she was late. She wasn’t smart. She was totally biased. She loved Trump.”
The cannon, which Trump appointed Southern Florida in 2020, discarded the classification document case after he concluded that the appointment of special advisor Jack Smith violated the constitution last July. She didn’t control whether Trump claimed to be mistreating classified documents.
“The lawsuit against me was bullshit and she correctly dismissed it,” Trump said Friday. “It has to stop, it’s illegal and it has to affect the judge.”
Smith’s appeal against Cannon’s ruling was pending when Trump was re-elected, and the special advisor later moved to withdraw the appeals related to Trump after his November victory.
Next to Trump in the Department of Justice’s Great Hall was a list of props listed as 180 kilos of fake fentanyl sitting under a box that said “Dea Evidence” in capital letters.
The president addressed the fight against illegal drug trafficking, particularly fentanyl, one of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s priorities.
“This sector won’t be on the way until we’ve completely finished the fentanyl epidemic in America,” Trump said. “Less than two months after I took office, the DEA and the FBI seized nearly one million deadly doses, which is just the beginning.”
Fentanyl has become the most common drug involved in overdose deaths in the US, burning what the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified as the “third wave” of the opioid overdose epidemic.
Trump is also threatening retaliation against Mexico if he doesn’t cut drug trafficking to the US.
This drug often kills people who don’t know that the drug they are taking is caught in it. To make that point, Trump brought his mother to the stage in 2022, when his son died of an accidental overdose.
“Their legacy will be wonderful because we want them to know that we work every day to banish these savages from our country and ensure that what happened to your loved one never happens again,” Trump said.
It emphasizes the campaign-like nature of the event, but when the hour-long speech was over, “YMCA” was usually played at the end of a Trump rally and rang out from the DOJ speakers.
Michael Williams of CNN contributed to this report.
