Trump rails against prosecutions, touts Jan. 6 hostages in visit to Justice Department

President Donald Trump visited the Justice Department on Friday — a move that comes as he has sought to assert control over the nation’s top law enforcement agency that brought two historic prosecutions against him, which were thwarted by his 2024 election victory.

“As we begin a proud new chapter in the chronicles of America, justice is really is something we’re turning the page on for a long years of corruption, weaponization and surrender to violent criminals,” Trump said to the crowd. “And we are restoring fair, equal and impartial justice under the Constitution or rule of law. And you’re the people that are doing it.

“Under the Trump administration, the DOJ and the FBI will once again become the premier crime fighting agencies on the face of the earth,” he added.

He used the setting to repeat his now-familiar accusation that the Justice Department was “weaponized” to attack him.

“We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls. Unfortunately, in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated that trust and goodwill built up over generations,” he said. “They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.”

“Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice,” continued Trump, who became a convicted felon in May 2024 after he was found guilty on 34 felony counts in New York. “But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they are never going to come back. They’re never coming back. So now, as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.”

The rare visit marks Trump’s first time inside the walls of the Robert F. Kennedy building as president, and as such his first since crowds of his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and were subsequently charged by the DOJ, and follows nearly a decade’s worth of conflict that have proven to be the ultimate stress test for the Justice Department’s post-Watergate norms intended to preserve independence from the White House.

Trump himself faced four criminal court cases, but all remaining charges were dropped when he was elected president — but not because the cases lacked merits — allowing him to avoid serious consequences. The president denied all the allegations and said the cases were politically motivated.

The opening weeks of Trump’s presidency have been a time of unprecedented upheaval for the DOJ, as Trump’s political leadership immediately moved to reassign or oust career officials who served in senior criminal and national security roles across multiple administrations.

Dozens of prosecutors who worked on investigations stemming from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol were fired, as well as DOJ and FBI officials who worked on former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations of Trump.

An effort by the department to drop its criminal corruption case against New York City Mayor Adams resulted in a dramatic standoff leading to multiple resignations by prosecutors and other top officials who described the arrangement as a clear “quid pro quo” to secure Adams’ cooperation with the administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement efforts.

However, in the very same speech in which the president griped about his own prosecutions, he suggested that his predecessor should be jailed for the way his administration handled the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“What a shame. The way we got out, I think it was the most humiliating time in the history of our country,” he said. “The way it happened. Not that we were getting out because we wanted to get out, but we would have gotten out with dignity and strength. And what a difference a rigged and crooked election had on our country, when you think about it. And the people who did this to us should go to jail, they should go to jail. So, I just want to say, God bless America because we have to say God bless. We’re lucky we’re still here.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt previewed Trump’s remarks on Fox News, saying that it will be focused on “restoring law and order,” but she added that he might also discuss “ending the weaponization of justice.”

“Donald Trump will go to the Department of Justice to visit with Attorney General Pam Bondi and Kash Patel to give a speech not just to the Department of Justice but to the American people about Donald Trump’s intention to restore a justice department that is truly focused on fighting crime and restoring law and order in American communities,” Leavitt said on Fox News.

She also previewed the remarks when asked by reporters at the White House on Friday morning, saying that Trump will be joined by families who have lost children “at the hands of illegal migrant criminals” and because of “illegal Chinese fentanyl.”

In remarks Thursday to reporters at the White House, Trump said his speech a thet DOJ would “set out” his “vision” for the department through the rest of his tenure.

“I think we have unbelievable people, and all I’m going to do is set out my vision. It’s going to be their vision, really, but it’s my ideas,” he said. “We want to have justice, and we want to have — we want to have safety in our cities as well as our communities. And we’ll be talking about immigration. We’ll be talking about a lot of things.”

Nearly every top appointee for the department previously represented Trump as a defense attorney in either an official or personal capacity, a reflection of Trump’s expectation for loyalty from a department that he has said he believes stymied his first term and was later “weaponized” against him after leaving office.

While Attorney General Pam Bondi told senators in her confirmation hearing she would “not politicize” her office, her opening weeks, critics argue, have been marked with politically charged statements repeatedly emphasizing her loyalty to Trump.

“I’ve never seen this before, and we all adore Donald Trump and we want to protect him and fight for his agenda,” Bondi said in an interview with Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

In another interview early this month, Bondi said she was still working to “root out” officials at the department who she said “despise Donald Trump.”

In one of her first directives following her confirmation, Bondi ordered DOJ officials to “zealously defend” the interests of the presidency and threatened discipline or termination for any attorney who refused to sign onto legal arguments put forward by political leadership.

“When Department of Justice attorneys, for example, refuse to advance good-faith arguments by declining to appear in court or sign briefs, it undermines the constitutional order and deprives the President of the benefit of his lawyers,” the directive stated.

Trump’s visit to DOJ is his first to any government agency since taking office, though it’s not without precedent. The last visit by a sitting American president to the building was when former President Barack Obama attended a departure ceremony in 2015 for Eric Holder — for a retirement ceremony honoring his time as attorney general.

ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.