Trump to speak at US justice department he now dominates
US President Donald Trump is to give a speech at the Department of Justice on Friday in a show of power over the agency he accused of weaponizing the law against him under his predecessor Joe Biden.
The speech on law and order by Republican Trump -- the first convicted felon to sit in the White House -- will be staged in the same building where officials previously brought two criminal cases against him.
Since returning to office Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Department of Justice, breaking decades-old political norms aimed at preserving judicial independence.
"All I'm going to do is set out my vision," Trump told reporters on Thursday about the speech.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the speech would be "focused on restoring law and order to our country."
"In the last four years in the Biden administration, we unfortunately saw the Department of Justice that was weaponized against Americans for their political ideology," she told reporters.
Trump's new Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Chief Kash Patel -- both key loyalists of the 78-year-old Republican -- will be there for the president's speech.
Leavitt said mothers of children killed by "illegal migrant criminals" and families affected by an epidemic of the synthetic drug fentanyl would also attend the speech.
- 'Retribution' -
Trump pledged on the campaign trail in the 2024 election to overhaul the department if he won a second term.
He had it in his sights ever since Special Counsel Jack Smith charged him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election -- which he still refuses to admit he lost -- and illegally taking thousands of secret documents with him on leaving the White House in 2021.
But neither case came to trial and the special counsel -- in line with a Justice Department policy of not prosecuting a sitting president -- dropped them both after Trump won the November presidential election.
Trump rocked the department on his first day back in office by pardoning more than 1,500 supporters who, in an unprecedented act of US political violence, stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to interrupt certification of Biden's election win.
He has since packed the Justice Department top ranks with loyalists and his own personal defense attorneys.
These include Bondi, who defended him at his impeachment trial in his first term, and two of his lawyers in the porn star hush money trial that saw Trump convicted by a New York judge last year.
Trump also exacted revenge by firing a number of high-ranking officials and demoting or reassigning others.
His iron grip over the Justice Department has sparked fears that he will use it to live up to another campaign pledge -- "retribution" against his political enemies.
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