Former President Donald Trump is leaning into the recent shake-ups at the Department of Justice by making a rare appearance at its headquarters in Washington, D.C., alongside Attorney General Pam Bondi to deliver a speech late Friday afternoon.
A month into Bondi’s tenure, Trump’s visit signals he is firmly united with the attorney general, a vocal Trump ally, as she makes sweeping changes to the DOJ that include gutting its public corruption unit, ramping up immigration enforcement, halting most Civil Rights Division activity, and conducting reviews to punish those who partook in what Trump has alleged was “third-world weaponization of prosecutorial power” during the Biden administration.
Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called Trump’s Friday visit “historic” in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner.
During his remarks, Trump is expected to revisit priorities he has touted for the department since taking office, including curbing the perceived politicization at the DOJ, according to Leavitt.
“President Trump will visit the Department of Justice to give remarks on restoring law and order, removing violent criminals from our communities, and ending the weaponization of justice against Americans for their political leanings,” Leavitt said.
Under Bondi, the DOJ has brought high-profile charges against Mohammad Sharifullah, an ISIS-K member accused of orchestrating bombings that left 13 U.S. service members dead during the Biden administration’s Afghanistan withdrawal. The department carried out a large-scale transfer from Mexico to the United States of more than two dozen alleged leaders of drug cartels. The Trump DOJ has also intervened in court cases across the country to reverse Biden-era legal initiatives related to abortion access and immigration.
Other activity, such as Bondi’s rollout of files from the late financier Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking case, has been met with backlash, however. Bondi hyped up the Epstein files on Fox News before publishing a small batch of mostly stale information from them, which she first released through a handful of right-wing social media influencers.
“The messaging was not good,” former FBI special agent in charge Jody Weis said in a television interview.
The DOJ’s Federal Program Bench has also been jammed up with dozens of lawsuits brought largely by Democratic-aligned entities against the Trump administration, and many plaintiffs in the cases have seen early successes. But the DOJ is aggressively appealing unfavorable rulings where possible, including, most recently, in its pursuit to limit birthright citizenship.
At the same time, resignations and firings of senior executives at the FBI, prominent U.S. attorneys’ offices, the Public Integrity Section, and elsewhere within the DOJ have raised alarm among Democrats and former officials, who have accused Trump of targeting his political enemies, the very activity the president claims to want to prevent.
The controversial dismissal of New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s corruption charges has also dealt the DOJ a reputational blow.
ENDING THE LAWFARE ERA: WHAT CAN PAM BONDI DO?
Bondi said Thursday in a statement online that she was eager for Trump’s visit as the attorney general works to avoid the same fate as Trump’s last two attorneys general, Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions, who fell out of favor with the former president.
“Looking forward to welcoming @POTUS to the Department of Justice tomorrow!” Bondi said.
