Trump Officials Didn’t Know If His Order To Prosecute Foes Was Meant To Be Secret
President Donald Trump stunned members of his administration Saturday night with a vicious social media attack, demanding that Attorney General Pam Bondi act swiftly to prosecute his political opponents.
In a message on Truth Social addressed to Pam, Trump complained that the Justice Department had still not prosecuted former FBI Director James Comey, Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D-N.Y.). His call to prosecute James came less than 24 hours after Trump fired the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for failing to indict James, who oversaw the New York civil fraud case against the president’s business empire.
Trump claimed, “They are all absolutely guilty, but no action will be taken.” » Trump complained that he had mistakenly appointed a “Republican in name only” as a federal prosecutor in Virginia, and appeared to urge Bondi to appoint his former personal attorney, Lindsay Halligan, to the position—a point he confirmed when he deleted, edited, and reposted the message.
Trump added: “We can’t wait any longer. This is destroying our reputation and our credibility. I’ve been impeached twice, five times (impeachment!), for no reason. Justice must be done now! President DJT.” Hours later, Trump announced Halligan’s nomination as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Many observers wondered whether Trump’s initial statement, concluding a week of unbridled authoritarianism, was a directive specifically addressed to Bondi. Senior officials in his administration have wondered the same thing. According to three sources familiar with the matter, several senior officials at the Justice Department, as well as at the White House, were surprised by Trump’s message Saturday evening.
Some in the Justice Department were left scratching their heads because the Truth Social post directed at “Pam” read so much like a text message or direct message from the president.
“Yes, he sends text messages like this,” says a Trump adviser. “It’s very similar to what the president writes online.”
According to sources, some administration officials concluded that, while this was likely another case of the president inadvertently making a private message public, it was best to move on and act as if it were a written request, still intended for public consumption.
In the end, this request for prosecution was nothing unusual. While sitting in the Oval Office in front of the cameras earlier this year, Trump took the extraordinary and authoritarian step of signing executive orders directing the Justice Department to open retaliatory criminal investigations against targets of his choosing.
Since returning to office, Trump has acted as if federal law enforcement were a wholly owned subsidiary of his political project and sacred persona—and his Justice Department has acted in the same way.
“We have to act quickly,” Trump told reporters at the White House Saturday evening after Pam’s publication. “If they’re not guilty, great. If they’re guilty or should be indicted, let them be. And we have to do it now.”
In an apparent attempt to correct the situation, the president later posted on social media that Bondi was “doing a great job,” while publicly expressing his dismay at her failure to quickly indict his enemies.
