{"id":173069,"date":"2025-09-22T02:46:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T02:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/173069\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T02:46:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T02:46:09","slug":"trump-officials-blindsided-by-his-public-order-to-prosecute-his-foes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/173069\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Officials Blindsided By His Public Order To Prosecute His Foes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPresident Donald Trump<\/a> surprised members of his administration with his social media outburst Saturday night demanding that Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/a> quickly move ahead with efforts to prosecute his political enemies.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a Truth Social post directed to \u201cPam,\u201d Trump complained that his Department of Justice has not yet prosecuted former FBI Director James Comey<\/a>, Sen. Adam Schiff<\/a> (D-Calif.), or New York<\/a> Attorney General Letitia James<\/a> (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<\/a> for failing to charge James, who oversaw New York\u2019s civil fraud case against the president\u2019s business empire.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019re all guilty as hell,\u201d Trump claimed, \u201cbut nothing is going to be done.\u201d He complained that he accidentally installed a \u201cwoke RINO\u201d as the U.S. attorney in Virginia, and appeared to urge Bondi to hire his former personal attorney Lindsey Halligan to fill that role \u2014 confirming this when he deleted, edited, and re-posted the message.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe can\u2019t delay any longer, it\u2019s killing our reputation and credibility,\u201d Trump added. \u201cThey impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT.\u201d Within hours, Trump announced he was appointing Halligan as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMany observers wondered whether Trump\u2019s initial post, which capped off a wildly authoritarian week<\/a>, 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<\/a>, and also at the White House, were blindsided by Trump\u2019s message on Saturday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tSome in the Justice Department were left scratching their heads because the Truth Social post directed at \u201cPam\u201d read so much like a text message or direct message from the president.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cYeah, he texts like that,\u201d one Trump adviser says. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot like what the president writes online.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSome 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAfter all, the demand for prosecutions wasn\u2019t exactly out of character. Sitting in the Oval Office before cameras earlier this year, Trump took the extraordinary, authoritarian steps of signing executive orders<\/a> instructing the Department of Justice to launch revenge-minded criminal investigations of Trump\u2019s handpicked targets.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince 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 \u2014 and his Justice Department has operated this way, too.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have to act fast,\u201d Trump told reporters at the White House later on Saturday night following his \u201cPam\u201d post. \u201cIf they\u2019re not guilty, that\u2019s fine. If they are guilty or if they should be charged, they should be charged. And we have to do it now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe president, in an apparent bit of clean-up, later posted to social media that Bondi is \u201cdoing a GREAT job,\u201d despite having just publicly vented his frustration with her failure to promptly charge his enemies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump surprised members of his administration with his social media outburst Saturday night demanding that Attorney…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64443,23,12,94487,16675,49710,2005,3,3131,21,19,22,20,25,24,5148],"class_list":{"0":"post-173069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-adam-schiff","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-james-comey","12":"tag-justice-department","13":"tag-letitia-james","14":"tag-new-york","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-pam-bondi","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-virginia"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}