President Donald Trump surprised members of his administration with his social media outburst Saturday night demanding that Attorney General Pam Bondi quickly move ahead with efforts to prosecute his political enemies.
In a Truth Social post directed to “Pam,” Trump complained that his Department of Justice has not yet prosecuted former FBI Director James Comey, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), or New York Attorney General Letitia James (D). His demand to prosecute James came less than 24 hours after Trump forced out the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia for failing to charge James, who oversaw New York’s civil fraud case against the president’s business empire.
“They’re all guilty as hell,” Trump claimed, “but nothing is going to be done.” He complained that he accidentally installed a “woke RINO” as the U.S. attorney in Virginia, and appeared to urge Bondi to hire his former personal attorney Lindsey Halligan to fill that role — confirming this when he deleted, edited, and re-posted the message.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump added. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT.” Within hours, Trump announced he was appointing Halligan as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Many observers wondered whether Trump’s initial post, which capped off a wildly authoritarian week, was meant to be a private directive to Bondi. Top officials in his administration had the same question. According to three sources familiar with the situation, several senior officials at the Justice Department, and also at the White House, were blindsided by Trump’s message on Saturday night.
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.
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“Yeah, he texts like that,” one Trump adviser says. “It’s a lot like what the president writes online.”
Some administration officials, the sources say, determined that even though it was likely this was another instance of the president accidentally posting a private message publicly, it was best to just carry on, and act like it was a written demand that was always meant for public consumption.
After all, the demand for prosecutions wasn’t exactly out of character. Sitting in the Oval Office before cameras earlier this year, Trump took the extraordinary, authoritarian steps of signing executive orders instructing the Department of Justice to launch revenge-minded criminal investigations of Trump’s handpicked targets.
Since regaining power, Trump has operated as though federal law enforcement is little more than a wholly owned subsidiary of his political project and personality cult — and his Justice Department has operated this way, too.
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“We have to act fast,” Trump told reporters at the White House later on Saturday night following his “Pam” post. “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty or if they should be charged, they should be charged. And we have to do it now.”
The president, in an apparent bit of clean-up, later posted to social media that Bondi is “doing a GREAT job,” despite having just publicly vented his frustration with her failure to promptly charge his enemies.