President Donald Trump defended his allies on Friday while calling for those he considers political opponents to be jailed during a speech at the Justice Department headquarters – an agency that was prosecuting him just months ago.
Trump referred to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who helped overturn his classified documents case, as a “brilliant” judge, while condemning the “terrible human beings” whom he accused of disrespecting Cannon.
As “NBC News” reports, after considering the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 as “the most humiliating time in the history of our country,” Trump reiterated his false claims of manipulated 2020 elections.
“What difference did the manipulated and distorted elections make to our country, when you think about it? And the people who did this to us should go to jail. They should go to jail,” he said, without specifying anyone by name.
Trump has continuously claimed, without evidence, that Democrats interfered in the 2020 election.
On Friday, he also said, “Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice,” adding that he would “stand firm and demand full accountability for the mistakes and abuses that have occurred.”
Calling former special prosecutor Jack Smith “crazy,” Trump referred to him as the “pawn” of the hundreds of January 6 defendants he pardoned on his first day in office and said the Justice Department would not return to what he called an era of weaponization.
“Those days are over, and they’re never coming back,” Trump said.
Trump is facing charges in two separate federal cases: one involving the handling of classified documents and another concerning his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. These cases were put on hold after the 2024 elections, and career prosecutors who worked on Smith’s team were dismissed when Trump took office, as were the many federal prosecutors who handled the January 6 cases.
As “NBC News” further reports, Trump’s remarks are not the first time he has called for his political opponents to be jailed. But the location of his speech – delivering comments at the Justice Department in a room filled with senior officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel – shows how his previous campaign threats for retribution have gained more seriousness now that he holds the powerful office of the presidency.
Trump highlighted the significance of his remarks at the Justice Department on Friday, becoming the third president of this century to give a speech at the agency’s headquarters.
Who is Jack Smith?
On May 7, 2018, U.S. prosecutor Jack Smith was appointed as the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Chambers of Kosovo in The Hague, or the Special Court for War Crimes. Smith was appointed after a selection process organized by the European Union.
As stated at the time in the announcement by the Special Court, Smith has experience in high-level political investigations and international criminal investigations.
Smith succeeded David Schwendiman, who was the first chief prosecutor but had stepped down on March 31 when his appointment as a U.S. Foreign Service official expired.
“It is an honor and a privilege to be given this challenge, and I am ready to take the investigations forward,” Smith had expressed at the time.
However, in November 2022, he resigned from investigating the charges against former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) who are in pretrial detention.
The Special Court had announced at the time that in place of prosecutor Smith, the investigations into the former KLA leaders in The Hague would continue under Alex Whiting, who had been appointed Acting Prosecutor of the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office (SPO).
“Whiting will perform the functions of Acting Specialist Prosecutor until a new Specialist Prosecutor is appointed. He has exactly the same powers as those of a Specialist Prosecutor and there will be no interruption in the work of the SPO in any aspect,” the court had announced.
