Donald Trump's fire and brimstone DOJ speech sends liberal media into meltdown

Washington D.C.: President Donald Trump has sparked an outcry from the liberal media after he delivered a fiery speech at the Department of Justice (DOJ). The setting of the speech was in itself a rarity for a sitting president.

The speech included calls for the imprisonment of political enemies, attacks on the judiciary, and claims that it should be illegal to criticize judges or assert that he lost the 2020 election.

MSNBC's Katie Phang, hosting The Beat for of Ari Melber, decried Trump's “shameful public display”. She said it revealed the depths of his corruption and his assault on the rule of law. Phang also claimed Trump’s speech was a reminder of his willingness to undermine democratic norms for personal gain.

During his speech, Trump called for his political opponents to be jailed, stating, “The people who did this to us should go to jail", referring to the slew of lawsuits against him in the run-up to the 2024 election. He also suggested that it should be illegal to criticize judges, claiming that judges are “afraid of bad publicity” and that such criticism “should be illegal and probably is illegal".

Trump said newspapers were no different than “highly paid political operatives” and called for restrictions on free speech, particularly regarding claims that he lost the 2020 election.

“What a difference a rigged and crooked election had on our country,” Trump said. “The people who did this to us should go to jail. They should go to jail.”

Trump’s remarks were delivered with his former defense lawyer now Attorney General, Pam Bondi, seated beside him. 

Alexis Loeb, a former DOJ prosecutor who worked on the January 6th cases, pointed to the combination of installing loyalists, purging career officials, and targeting political enemies as evidence of Trump’s efforts to undermine the department’s integrity.

“We have never seen weaponization like this before,” Loeb said. “This combination of installing loyalists and purging career officials has gone so far beyond anything we’ve seen with any previous administration.”

Loeb also noted the targeting of law firms representing Trump’s political enemies and the pardoning of over 1,500 individuals involved in the January 6th Capitol attack as further examples of Trump’s efforts to undermine the rule of law.

Barrett Berger, a former federal prosecutor with the Southern District of New York, expressed concern over the culture of fear that Trump’s actions have created within the DOJ. Berger noted that career officials are “terrified for their jobs and their reputations” and that Trump’s speech did nothing to reassure them.

“The president simply wasn’t a presence in the Department of Justice during my many years there,” Berger said. “This is a huge sea change. Today’s speech gave no one any reason to not continue to be scared.”

Loeb also highlighted the demotion of senior prosecutors in the D.C. office, many of whom were moved to misdemeanor units, as evidence of the administration’s targeting of perceived enemies. “These are senior prosecutors with expertise in violent crime and national security, the kinds of things the administration says are its priorities,” Loeb said. “Yet they were moved to the office’s misdemeanor units.”

Trump has also faced significant legal setbacks in recent weeks. In the past three weeks alone, Trump has suffered eight losses in court, compared to just one win. These losses include rulings against his efforts to fire thousands of probationary employees and other executive actions.

Berger noted that many of these rulings are procedural and do not address the ultimate legal issues at hand. “A lot of these decisions are temporary,” Berger said. “The courts are ruling on the process or the procedure, not the ultimate issue.”

However, Berger also expressed cautious optimism that the court system is functioning as a check on Trump’s abuses of power. “It does seem that the court system is working,” Berger said. “But it will be interesting to see if these guardrails hold once courts start ruling on the ultimate issues.”