Trump Adds 3 More Names to the List of Enemies He Wants the Justice Department To Prosecute

“In my opinion, the deranged Jack Smith is a criminal,” President Donald Trump said. press conference Wednesday in the Oval Office. The sentiment wasn’t new: Everyone knows Trump holds a grudge against Smith, the former special counsel who filed two federal indictments against him; Trump described it as “the worst weaponization of the justice system in the history of the world.” But the fact that the president presented his assessment of Smith alongside three top federal law enforcement officials — Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel — made it seem like his marching orders rather than his usual airing of grievances.

Bondi, Blanche and Patel are all Trump loyalists who have previously worked for him. Bondi served on Trump’s defense team during his first impeachment. Blanche represented him during his criminal trial in New York in 2024. patel-author children’s books It details the tribulations of the wise and just “King Donald,” who was able to triumph over his evil enemies with the help of a “magician named Kash, the Elite Explorer,” who served as Trump’s campaign surrogate and intermediary during the dispute over presidential records he received as he left the White House in January 2021. But in their current positions, Bondi, Blanche and Patel are supposed to be working for the American people, and before their Senate confirmations, all three vowed to pursue justice rather than revenge.

How’s this going? The suspected perjury indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, who gained a prominent place on Trump’s list of enemies by overseeing the investigation of alleged ties between the 2016 campaign and the Russian government, came just five days before the deadline and five days after the president went public. said “We can’t delay it any longer,” Bondi said. This Truth Social message also talked about the need to prosecute another Trump nemesis, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who was accused of mortgage fraud in an indictment obtained last week by the same rookie prosecutor: Lindsey Halligan, a former Trump lawyer and her predecessor’s failure to pursue cases against Comey and James. He appointed her as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia after she proved insufficiently willing.

Bondi and Blanche were also reportedly privately skeptical about the validity of these cases. The President still got what he wanted; This suggests that the same thing could happen to Smith, despite Trump’s inability to fully explain the former special prosecutor’s alleged crime.

Trump hinted at October 8 report at University College London, where Smith is based. defended His work on criminal cases accusing Trump of mishandling classified materials after leaving office and of trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Interviewed by Smith at that event was former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann, who reminded Trump that Weissmann was also a “bad guy” and probably should have been prosecuted for a reason. “I hope they investigate Weissmann, too,” he said.

Weissmann earned Trump’s ire by participating in the Russia investigation as part of former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. While Trump spoke of people who have wronged him in one way or another, he added that Lisa Monaco, who was a deputy attorney general during the Biden administration, likewise “needs to be dealt with very strongly.” Trump declared that Monaco was Weissmann’s “puppet” and therefore he should also be punished.

“There was tremendous criminal activity,” Trump said. “You talk about political crime…I hope they are looking at political crime because there has never been as much political crime against a political opponent as I have had to experience.”

New York Times Reporter Glenn Juniper notes Bondi said Blanche and Patel were “smiling, nodding and shuffling around” as their bosses suggested the Justice Department should find criminal charges to implicate Smith, Weissmann and Monaco. But don’t worry: During her confirmation hearing, Patel promised there would be no “politicization of the FBI” and “no punitive actions” against the president’s enemies.

Patel felt the need to give these assurances because he had published a book in 2023. Government GangstersThis included an appendix listing 60 “Deep State Executive Branch Members” whom it described as “corrupt actors of the first order.” Weissmann and Monaco were also on that list. Smith didn’t make the cut, presumably because he didn’t get the first indictment against Trump until June 2023, after Patel finished drafting it.

In any case, Patel assured the senators who confirmed him: promise He would not use his powers to “go after” anti-Trump “conspirators” in the service of the president’s personal vendettas. Patel nevertheless presented Comey’s indictment as a response to the “Russiagate Hoax,” even though the charges against him were legally unrelated to that investigation.

Like Patel, Bondi was confirmed after promising to act according to facts and the law rather than the president’s grudges. “Partisanship and armament will disappear” declared. “There will be one level of justice for everyone in America… There will never be an enemy list in the Department of Justice.”

Blanche sang the same song during her confirmation hearing. “Politics should never play a role in the Ministry of Justice” in question. “We will work to restore the American people’s faith in our justice system.”

Whether or not Bondi and Blanche meant what they said, the President clearly does not share the vision they describe. “They’re all so guilty,” Trump said in his Truth Social rant addressing Bondi, mentioning Comey and James, to which he added three more names to that list: Adam Schiff, the yet-to-be-indicted Democratic senator from California (Trump himself mentioned it on Wednesday). Guilty of what? According to Trump, the Justice Department’s job is to solve this.

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