President Trump has urged and browbeaten supporters to shift their obsession from the Jeffrey Epstein files to the investigation and potential prosecution of Democratic officials he accuses of persecuting him, a cardinal grievance that bonds him to his base.
The Justice Department under Mr. Trump, reeling from the angry backlash over its handling of the Epstein case, is now taking its most concrete — if still murky — investigative steps against Trump targets, starting with officials he blames for what he sees as the plot against him: the investigation of his 2016 campaign’s connections to Russia.
Attorney General Pam Bondi this week authorized prosecutors to investigate the inquiry the president calls the “Russia hoax” and present a case to a grand jury in South Florida if the evidence warrants it, according to people briefed on the move who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing investigations.
Details are scant, including whether prosecutors have taken action. But Trump appointees are reluctant to present evidence to a grand jury in the District of Columbia where key decisions in the Russia investigation were made nearly a decade ago. They believe it would be nearly impossible to find sympathetic jurors in a courthouse overseen by a federal judge, James E. Boasberg, whom the Trump team regards as an enemy.
Fox News on Monday reported the existence of Ms. Bondi’s order, which comes after a referral from Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.
A Justice Department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The decision to authorize a grand jury investigation, which could include subpoenas, into the statements and testimony by government officials surrounding the 2016 election suggests the Trump administration has begun turning its rhetoric of revenge into action. Still, there are a number of legal and practical hurdles that any such inquiry would have to overcome, chief among them the statute of limitations that would seemingly bar criminal charges based on conduct that is more than five years old.
Such concerns, however significant, have been swept aside, at least for now, by the eagerness to appease an impatient president demanding to use the vast powers of federal law enforcement to exact vengeance — and the political imperative of making the Epstein fiasco disappear.
Even in the absence of a legal success, such as an indictment or conviction, the effort itself accomplishes political objectives in a department that considers investigations largely intended to name and shame a legitimate use of its authority.
Many Trump advisers and allies also view the Russia investigation as a gross abuse of power, while some were personally affected by the inquiry and forced to hire lawyers to defend themselves.
Mr. Trump has privately carped about the slow pace of Justice Department action to his political enemies, according to people in his orbit, and made it unmistakably known what he wanted. “Scum” was how Mr. Trump described those who investigated him during a speech in the department’s Great Hall in March, as Ms. Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general, looked on.
Mr. Trump has repeatedly urged his backers to drop a fierce pressure campaign to release undisclosed Epstein files and rally under the “weaponization” banner. On Tuesday, he told CNBC that he had “nothing” to do with Ms. Bondi’s order — then celebrated the move to investigate Obama administration national security officials, saying “they deserve it.”
The decision also comes as the Trump administration faces increasing pressure to produce more information about the F.B.I.’s files on Mr. Epstein, the financier who was awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges before he hanged himself in a jail cell in 2019. Last month, Mr. Blanche, a former Trump defense lawyer, interviewed Ghislaine Maxwell, Mr. Epstein’s convicted co-conspirator.
Law enforcement officials have privately talked about releasing at least some of the information she provided, although they are still discussing the extent of what they will disclose, according to several people familiar with the conversations.
The emergence of the grand jury inquiry was unusual in several ways — not least, because its existence was revealed to right-leaning media outlets like Fox News before any actual investigative steps had apparently been taken.
Moreover, it remains unclear who the grand jury might investigate and for what, if any, crimes.
When federal prosecutors opened two grand jury investigations into Mr. Trump while he was out of office, they did so quietly, and their work — examining the mishandling of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election — became public only when subpoenas for records and witness testimony started being issued.
Thus far, the Justice Department has moved more slowly to scrutinize Biden-era officials who participated in the two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions of Mr. Trump.
Last week, an obscure agency that scrutinizes potential misconduct by or against federal employees, the Office of Special Counsel, took a step in that direction, confirming it was investigating Jack Smith, the former federal prosecutor who oversaw the criminal cases against Mr. Trump.
The agency is trying to determine if Mr. Smith may have violated the Hatch Act, which bars federal workers from using their government jobs to promote political candidates. It is unclear how that investigation could result in any substantive consequences for Mr. Smith, given that the most severe punishment allowed under the Hatch Act is dismissal, and Mr. Smith resigned his government position many months ago.
It is not clear whether Mr. Trump, who is marking his first six months in office, would have pushed quite so forcefully for the department to act against his perceived foes if the Epstein case was not still smoldering political fire. But it has certainly added to the urgency, administration officials said.
Politicians and influencers on the right flank of the Republican Party — who have demanded a full accounting of Mr. Epstein’s interactions with wealthy and powerful friends — are equally if not more enthusiastic about deploying the Justice Department, F.B.I., and intelligence services to uncover what they claim to be vast decade-long, Democratic-led conspiracy to destroy Mr. Trump.
A few of Mr. Trump’s key congressional allies and some of the most vocal members of his base have been beating the drums for arrests almost from the moment that the bureau and intelligence officials started releasing documents on the Russia investigation last month.
On Monday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, posted a message on social media with a “scorecard” showing that no one had been arrested yet for popular MAGA-world bugbears like the “Russia Collusion Hoax,” “Jan. 6” and the “2020 Election.”
“Don’t talk about it if you aren’t going to do it,” Ms. Greene wrote.
Among the most fervid Trump supporters calling for arrests are the rioters who were charged in connection with — and then granted clemency for — the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Many of them have demanded retribution against Mr. Trump’s enemies, citing their own grievances as federally prosecuted defendants.
“Dear God, has anyone been arrested yet?” wrote one pardoned rioter, Benjamin Martin, who was initially sentenced to 13 months in prison for holding open a door at the Capitol so that others could spray chemicals at the police.
Few of those calling for the investigation have been as maximalist as Mr. Trump himself. He recently wrote on social media that President Obama should be arrested as a traitor for treason.
In late July, Ms. Gabbard blindsided Ms. Bondi by referring the investigation of the Russian investigation to the Justice Department, claiming a cache of documents she released proved Obama administration officials engaged in a “treasonous conspiracy.”
In response, Ms. Bondi announced the creation of a multiagency “strike force” to investigate the charges. Her subsequent grand jury order was made as part of that process, according to an official briefed on the move.
The claims by Trump supporters that Obama-era officials engaged in a far-reaching conspiracy to undermine his 2016 campaign have already been exhaustively investigated by a special counsel, John Durham, with little to show for it.
Mr. Durham filed two criminal indictments based on that investigation, one against a private practice lawyer on charges of lying to the F.B.I., and another against a Russia analyst for essentially the same offense. Each case ended in acquittals.
A new investigation would face a potentially steeper challenge, relying on the years-old statements and the recollection of senior intelligence and law enforcement officials about an election held nearly nine years ago.
But not every investigation of Mr. Trump’s perceived enemies has led to meaningful consequences.
In November 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions tapped a U.S. attorney in Utah to review a number of issues related to Hillary Clinton, as well as the 2016 election. That effort lasted about two years before quietly ending with no substantive action or public findings.
Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice for The Times and has also written about gun violence, civil rights and conditions in the country’s jails and prisons.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.
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