President Trump on Friday cheered the indictment of James B. Comey, the former F.BI. director, and predicted more indictments were on the way, even as he denied that he had a list of perceived enemies he wanted to see prosecuted.
“There’ll be others,” Mr. Trump said on the South Lawn of the White House.
Mr. Trump has cast the indictment as “justice” rather than revenge, but his own words and actions cast doubt on that assertion. As the president engages in a wide-ranging retribution crusade against his political opponents, he has explicitly directed his attorney general, in writing, to move more quickly to prosecute individuals he considers his enemies.
Mr. Trump has also sought to justify his quest for revenge by accusing Democrats of weaponizing the Justice Department against him first. But the cases against Mr. Trump were brought by a special counsel — a semi-independent prosecutor who is appointed when an investigation may raise the appearance of a conflict of interest for the Justice Department. Then-Attorney General Merrick Garland took great pains to show independence from the Biden White House.
“They did it with me for four years,” Mr. Trump said Friday. “They went after me.”
Mr. Trump has shown no interest in having an independent Justice Department. Over the weekend, in a post on Truth Social, Mr. Trump asked Pam Bondi, the attorney general, why “Nothing is being done” about Mr. Comey, Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California, and Letitia James, the New York attorney general.
The Justice Department is also drafting plans to investigate a group funded by George Soros, the billionaire Democratic donor whom Mr. Trump has demanded be thrown in jail.
Mr. Comey was indicted Thursday on one count of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of a congressional proceeding in connection with his testimony before a Senate committee in September 2020. The indictment came after career prosecutors objected to bringing the case but were overruled by Lindsey Halligan, a Trump loyalist handpicked by the president to be the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the charges were filed.
“He’s a dirty cop,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Comey. “He’s always been a dirty cop.”
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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