'Cases against me were 'bulls**t': Trump laments about his legal battles in rare Justice Dept speech

In a fiery speech at the US Department of Justice headquarters, US President Donald Trump vented about his criminal cases and continued with his election victory lap. The never-before-seen address came in the garb of a “policy speech” for the administration. Trump went on to laud the amount of work his government did in a short period, including combating illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

However, the majority of Trump’s remarks focused on his grievances with the department under former US President Joe Biden. Trump gave the address in the Justice Department’s great hall, displacing the longstanding tradition of independence from partisan politics and instead turning it into an extension of the White House.

In the past, the very same hall has been used for major law enforcement announcements by the Justice Department and its senior leaders. The president only delivered speeches in the area when the remarks were of a national security or non-political stripe.

Trump goes on for an hour

In his hour-long speech, Trump repeatedly strayed from his prepared remarks to assail the criminal cases against him. He called out various lawyers and former prosecutors by name and accused the Biden administration of trying to “destroy him”. He went on to unleash personal attacks against his predecessor and called Biden the “head of a crime family”.

“The case against me was bulls**t,” Trump said with fury, in the building where the charges were approved. The president lauded his defence lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, whom he elevated to, in effect, run the justice department as the deputy attorney general and the principal associate deputy attorney general, respectively, as well as the department’s chief of staff, Chad Mizelle.

Trump also offered notable praise for the US district judge Aileen Cannon, who dismissed criminal charges against him in the classified document case. Trump insisted that criticism of Cannon made her “angry,” although he also said that he had never spoken to her. “She was brilliant,” Trump said of Cannon, “the absolute model of what a judge should be.”

The president said that “it should be a crime to criticise judges,” completely forgetting the fact that he has previously castigated judges who did not rule in his favour and sought to defend legal cases in public. “It has to stop, it has to be illegal, influencing judges,” Trump said as his administration now attempts to defend his policies and cost-cutting efforts amid a host of lawsuits.

Trump concluded his address by announcing an ad campaign to combat illegal fentanyl , which often kills people because it is mixed with other drugs. He recalled that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum told him about their campaign informing the public about its consequences.

“They show the skin falling off and the teeth falling out and going blind and losing hair and everything these things do,” Trump said, “you look like you just came out of a horrible concentration camp.”