Trump demands 'accountability' for his pursuers in Justice Department speech

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to seek accountability for prosecutors and officials who pursued legal cases against him during his years out of power, speaking at the U.S. Justice Department whose prosecutors had brought some of those cases.

In a rare campaign-style speech at the department's Washington headquarters, Trump painted a dark picture of its trajectory prior to his return to office in January, saying it had been co-opted by "hacks and radicals."

"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 American people have given us a mandate - a mandate like few people thought possible," Trump said.

The address hit on familiar themes from Trump's 2024 campaign rallies, including border security and the threat of violent crime. He spoke next to a stack of paper boxes meant to simulate a quantity of the narcotic fentanyl that could kill millions.

But much of the speech focused on his own fraught past with the Justice Department, which twice indicted him during his years out of power on charges accusing him of illegally storing classified documents at his Florida club and plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

"We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls," Trump said.

Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has since left the department, dropped both cases after Trump won the November election, citing a longstanding Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president. Neither reached a trial.

Prosecutors brought those cases after seizing more than 100 classified documents Trump had taken to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida following his first term, and examining his quest to stay in power after falsely claiming he had won the 2020 election.

Representative Jamie Raskin, the most senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said it was Trump and his appointees who had led the Justice Department astray, pointing to Trump's decision to pardon nearly all 1,600 people the department had criminally charged with participating in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

"The original Department of Justice started out by empowering law enforcement against insurrectionists and extremists," Raskin said, speaking outside the Justice Department following Trump's speech. "This DOJ has started out by empowering insurrectionists and extremists against law enforcement."

PRAISES ONE JUDGE, ATTACKS OTHERS

Trump reiterated his complaints about the cases against him during his speech, praising the federal judge, a Trump nominee, who dismissed the classified documents case. He accused legal experts who publicly commented on those prosecutions of seeking to intimidate judges, while also alleging his defense lawyers faced "corrupt judges" in some of the cases against him.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Friday questioned the authority of federal judges, following an order to the administration to reverse some recent firings of federal workers.

"You cannot have a low-level District Court judge filing an injunction to usurp the executive authority of the president of the United States," Leavitt told reporters.

Trump has long had an antagonistic relationship with the department, dating back to its investigation of ties between Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government.

He repeatedly claimed that Smith’s cases against him were part of an effort to keep him from returning to power, using vows of retribution and claims of government “weaponization” to fuel his political comeback. Prosecutors repeatedly denied any political influence in the cases.

Trump-nominated Attorney General Pam Bondi has started an internal review of Smith’s cases as well as other criminal cases and civil lawsuits brought against Trump during his years out of power.

Trump has moved swiftly to exert control over the Justice Department since returning to office, challenging a decades-old tradition that the top U.S. law enforcement agency operates with a degree of independence from the White House.

Justice Department leaders have fired more than a dozen lawyers who worked on the Trump cases and removed or reassigned scores of career officials who typically remain in their posts across presidential administrations.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward, additional reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt; editing by Scott Malone and Alistair Bell)