His demand came a day after he ousted the federal prosecutor who failed to charge two of his most-reviled adversaries, Letitia James and James B. Comey.
President Trump’s campaign against U.S. attorneys is an extension, even an escalation, of the early purge that his top political appointees carried out at the Justice Department. Credit... Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times
President Trump demanded on Saturday that his attorney general move quickly to prosecute figures he considers his enemies, the latest blow to the Justice Department’s tradition of independence.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post addressed to “Pam,” meaning Attorney General Pam Bondi. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Mr. Trump named James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director; Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California; and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, saying he was reading about how they were “all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.”
Asked later by reporters about his message for Ms. Bondi, Mr. Trump said, “They have to act. They have to act fast.”
Even for a president who has shattered the traditional norms of maintaining distance from the Justice Department, Mr. Trump’s unabashedly public and explicit orders to Ms. Bondi were an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal.
His demands came a day after he ousted the federal prosecutor who failed to charge two of the adversaries he most reviles, Ms. James and Mr. Comey, showing how far Mr. Trump has gone in exerting personal control over the Justice Department and breaching the longstanding norm about keeping politics at a distance from law enforcement.
In a different social media post later on Saturday, Mr. Trump defended Ms. Bondi, saying she was doing a “GREAT job,” but that she needed a “tough prosecutor” in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Erik S. Siebert, was abruptly forced from his post atop the U.S. attorney’s office on Friday. Mr. Trump said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to the president who was on his personal legal team, to fill the role.
Ms. Halligan, who spent much of her career as an insurance lawyer, has never been a prosecutor.
Mr. Siebert’s exit deepened troubling questions that have arisen in recent months about the politicization of the Justice Department’s supposedly self-governing satellite offices.
But it also raised a blunter and more immediate issue: Which of the nation’s U.S. attorneys might be next?
Beyond their efforts to push out Mr. Siebert, whose inquiries into Ms. James and Mr. Comey effectively fizzled out, administration officials have also ramped up pressure against Kelly O. Hayes, the U.S. attorney in Maryland, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Ms. Hayes, a career prosecutor who has spent more than a decade in that office, is leading inquiries into two other vocal critics of Mr. Trump: Mr. Schiff, who has been accused of mortgage fraud by Mr. Trump’s allies; and John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, who is facing scrutiny over allegations of mishandling classified information.
Kelly O. Hayes told associates that she was under no illusions of the pressure she would face if she refused to bring a case she believed to be unsupported by evidence.
Recently, Ms. Hayes told associates that she was under no illusions of the pressure she would face if she refused to bring a case she believed to be unsupported by evidence, as Mr. Siebert did, according to people with knowledge of those conversations. And while she signed off last month on asking for a warrant to search Mr. Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Md., she has indicated that she would not bring charges against Mr. Schiff unless her team discovered evidence to support them.
Mr. Trump’s campaign against U.S. attorneys, who oversee offices in 93 federal districts across the country, is an extension, even an escalation, of the early purge that his top political appointees carried out at the Justice Department headquarters and the F.B.I. against those who worked on the criminal cases brought against him before he returned to power.
But his latest demand for the prosecution of his foes also underscores how his desire for retribution against those who pursued him after his first term remains as intense as ever, and how he appears to feel less constrained by political and legal norms in imposing payback.
“I was indicted five times, it turned out to be a fake deal, and we have to act fast, one way or the other, one way or the other — they’re guilty, they’re not guilty, we have to act fast,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty, or if they should be charged, they should be charged.”
Given that these prosecutors’ offices are where federal cases are filed on a day-to-day basis, the move strikes at the nuts-and-bolts foundations of the criminal justice system. It seems intended both to create a frictionless path for prosecutions of those who have run afoul of Mr. Trump, and perhaps to provide the White House with a tool it could use to set aside or slow cases it would like to see disappear.
White House interference in the work of U.S. attorneys was once considered such a taboo that former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who served under President George W. Bush, resigned in scandal after the Justice Department fired nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 for what were perceived to be political reasons.
But Mr. Trump’s reaction to Mr. Siebert’s ouster could not have been more different.
The way in which the prosecutor, Erik S. Siebert, was abruptly forced from his post deepened troubling questions that have arisen in recent months about the politicization of the Justice Department. Credit... Rod Lamkey/Associated Press
Several people, including Ms. Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and the president’s former defense lawyer, lobbied hard to keep Mr. Siebert in place, arguing that he had been an efficient and cooperative partner on immigration and crime enforcement in Washington’s southern suburbs.
But Mr. Trump responded to repeated entreaties by saying, “I don’t care,” according to a person with knowledge of the matter. His position seemed to be that he had been warned several times during his first term about firing U.S. attorneys, given that it could have put him in jeopardy, and he ended up being investigated after leaving office anyhow, the person said.
While U.S. attorneys are appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the president, they like to think of themselves as having some measure of professional autonomy, said Barbara L. McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Detroit who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School. That sense of independence largely arises from measures put in place in the 1970s, after the Watergate scandal, dictating that partisan politics should never play a role in a prosecutor’s decision-making process.
“U.S. attorneys pride themselves on saying that we act without fear or favor,” Ms. McQuade said. “But if you see other U.S. attorneys getting fired for failing to comply with orders from the White House, well, that could lead to fear. And if you are letting someone off the hook for political reasons, well, that is favor. Both are inappropriate.”
President Donald Trump urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring criminal charges against political enemies like Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former FBI Director James Comey , saying further delays are only “killing our reputation and credibility.”
In a statement to his Truth Social platform Saturday night, the president turned up the heat on his attorney general to take “action” against Schiff, Comey, and New York Attorney General Letitia James — to name just a few. Here’s the shocking post in full:
“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam “Shifty” Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.’ Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case. No, I fired him, and there is a GREAT CASE, and many lawyers, and legal pundits, say so. Lindsey Halligan is a really good lawyer, and likes you, a lot. We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!! President DJT
In a follow-up post , Trump reiterated his support for Bondi — and added that Lindsey Halligan , who Trump referenced in his prior post, will be nominated to take over as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. Erik Siebert announced plans to resign from that post amid reported pressure from top Trump administration officials to bring a case against James.
“Pam Bondi is doing a GREAT job as Attorney General of the United States,” Trump wrote. “She is very careful, very smart, loves our Country, but needs a tough prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, like my recommendation, Lindsey Halligan, to get things moving. What we don’t need is a Democrat Endorsed ‘Republican.’ I will be nominating Lindsey Halligan to be the United States Attorney in this very important part of our Great Country. She will be Fair, Smart, and will provide, desperately needed, JUSTICE FOR ALL!”
Halligan is a former personal attorney for Trump who currently serves in his administration as a special assistant.
The president has ripped Comey and Schiff in the past for pushing bogus claims he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Trump, in 2023, called Schiff a “sleazebag and traitor” who “should be prosecuted for the damage he has done” to the U.S. And Trump has criticized Comey a number of times for leading what he has called the Russia “witch hunt” over the years.
Bondi, meanwhile, was already called out this week by many prominent conservatives, including The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, for saying she would target “hate speech” against slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk . Walsh said Bondi should be fired for that comment, as well as her claim that businesses must allow customers to print posters honoring Kirk.
Then we almost put in a Democrat supported U.S. Attorney, in Virginia, with a really bad Republican past. A Woke RINO, who was never going to do his job. That’s why two of the worst Dem Senators PUSHED him so hard. He even lied to the media and said he quit, and that we had no case.
Hehe. Todd Gilbert. I wonder if he's regretting voting for leopards to eat his face. He spoke at my son's graduation, and made it about his political achievements. Asshole.
This is from Virginia's Senator Tim Kaine, who, along with Mark Warner, nominated Gilbert to the position:
Erik Siebert began his career as a police officer in Washington D.C. before attending law school, then began a stellar career as a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Eastern District. He rose through the ranks and achieved notable success as a prosecutor and also in management positions within one of the most important law enforcement agencies in the nation. The Eastern District, as home to the Pentagon, CIA, numerous military bases and national security agencies, has one of the most complex dockets of any federal district in the country.
Todd Gilbert is a former state prosecutor in the Shenandoah Valley who was then elected as a Republican member of the Virginia General Assembly. He served on the Courts of Justice Committee and later achieved the honor of serving as Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. He resigned his position in the legislature when President Trump appointed him as the interim U.S. Attorney for the Western District.
Despite the superb qualifications of these individuals, and despite the fact that President Trump and his legal advisors at the White House and Department of Justice reviewed, approved, nominated and appointed them to serve as interim U.S. Attorneys even before the Senate confirmed them, the President has now forced both of them to resign.
Todd Gilbert resigned about a month after his appointment as interim U.S. Attorney as he refused Department of Justice pressure to demote a longtime non-political attorney from the leadership team in his office. Erik Siebert resigned on September 19 as he refused Administration pressure to bring a baseless criminal case against someone who President Trump sees as a political opponent.
Gilbert gave up his job as Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia to take this position, and then Trump stabbed him in the back. He's a Trump supporter currently in the "Find Out" phase of his life.
The People shocked by this supported an official campaigning to get trump (didn’t know for what law, but he’d find one, formed a legal team specifically to find a theory to prosecute him, and settled on a felony that resurrected two expired misdemeanors, one of which no one had every been convicted before. Then used a conflicted anti trump judge to Shepard it home,
Has Trump ever won one of the legal cases that was brought against him? If it wasnt for the Supreme Court and the election he'd be in prison now.
Here we have the president of the United States demanding his political opponents be charged with crimes . What crimes? Lets see if this idiot can even describe what their crimes were. You know he cant.
It's clear Trump wants to humiliate Bondi publicly, so when he 'releases' her the nation will know why on background. How much more of this are we forced to withstand? And do note: The president of the United States without any law degree has judged whom is "guilty as hell." This is outrageous.
A little insight as to the lecture Putin gave Trump when they met in Helsinki. Squash all opposition by destroying the media, punishing his imagined enemies, then actively foment violence with the goal of martial law and ending democracy.
And the rest of the country sat around looking at this like they were spectators in their own country. Food for Thought: Let's say Trump does NOT succeed in his efforts to break democracy. . .and leaves what remains to be done up to his successor. Where were you?
Trump Demands That Bondi Move ‘Now’ to Prosecute Foes
His demand came a day after he ousted the federal prosecutor who failed to charge two of his most-reviled adversaries, Letitia James and James B. Comey.
President Trump demanded on Saturday that his attorney general move quickly to prosecute figures he considers his enemies, the latest blow to the Justice Department’s tradition of independence.
“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post addressed to “Pam,” meaning Attorney General Pam Bondi. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”
Mr. Trump named James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director; Senator Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California; and Letitia James, the New York attorney general, saying he was reading about how they were “all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.”
Asked later by reporters about his message for Ms. Bondi, Mr. Trump said, “They have to act. They have to act fast.”
Even for a president who has shattered the traditional norms of maintaining distance from the Justice Department, Mr. Trump’s unabashedly public and explicit orders to Ms. Bondi were an extraordinary breach of prosecutorial protocols that reach back to the days following the Watergate scandal.
His demands came a day after he ousted the federal prosecutor who failed to charge two of the adversaries he most reviles, Ms. James and Mr. Comey, showing how far Mr. Trump has gone in exerting personal control over the Justice Department and breaching the longstanding norm about keeping politics at a distance from law enforcement.
In a different social media post later on Saturday, Mr. Trump defended Ms. Bondi, saying she was doing a “GREAT job,” but that she needed a “tough prosecutor” in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Erik S. Siebert, was abruptly forced from his post atop the U.S. attorney’s office on Friday. Mr. Trump said he would nominate Lindsey Halligan, a special assistant to the president who was on his personal legal team, to fill the role.
Ms. Halligan, who spent much of her career as an insurance lawyer, has never been a prosecutor.
Mr. Siebert’s exit deepened troubling questions that have arisen in recent months about the politicization of the Justice Department’s supposedly self-governing satellite offices.
But it also raised a blunter and more immediate issue: Which of the nation’s U.S. attorneys might be next?
Beyond their efforts to push out Mr. Siebert, whose inquiries into Ms. James and Mr. Comey effectively fizzled out, administration officials have also ramped up pressure against Kelly O. Hayes, the U.S. attorney in Maryland, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Ms. Hayes, a career prosecutor who has spent more than a decade in that office, is leading inquiries into two other vocal critics of Mr. Trump: Mr. Schiff, who has been accused of mortgage fraud by Mr. Trump’s allies; and John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, who is facing scrutiny over allegations of mishandling classified information.
Recently, Ms. Hayes told associates that she was under no illusions of the pressure she would face if she refused to bring a case she believed to be unsupported by evidence, as Mr. Siebert did, according to people with knowledge of those conversations. And while she signed off last month on asking for a warrant to search Mr. Bolton’s home in Bethesda, Md., she has indicated that she would not bring charges against Mr. Schiff unless her team discovered evidence to support them.
Mr. Trump’s campaign against U.S. attorneys, who oversee offices in 93 federal districts across the country, is an extension, even an escalation, of the early purge that his top political appointees carried out at the Justice Department headquarters and the F.B.I. against those who worked on the criminal cases brought against him before he returned to power.
But his latest demand for the prosecution of his foes also underscores how his desire for retribution against those who pursued him after his first term remains as intense as ever, and how he appears to feel less constrained by political and legal norms in imposing payback.
“I was indicted five times, it turned out to be a fake deal, and we have to act fast, one way or the other, one way or the other — they’re guilty, they’re not guilty, we have to act fast,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty, or if they should be charged, they should be charged.”
Given that these prosecutors’ offices are where federal cases are filed on a day-to-day basis, the move strikes at the nuts-and-bolts foundations of the criminal justice system. It seems intended both to create a frictionless path for prosecutions of those who have run afoul of Mr. Trump, and perhaps to provide the White House with a tool it could use to set aside or slow cases it would like to see disappear.
White House interference in the work of U.S. attorneys was once considered such a taboo that former Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who served under President George W. Bush, resigned in scandal after the Justice Department fired nine U.S. attorneys in 2006 for what were perceived to be political reasons.
But Mr. Trump’s reaction to Mr. Siebert’s ouster could not have been more different.
Several people, including Ms. Bondi and Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney general and the president’s former defense lawyer, lobbied hard to keep Mr. Siebert in place, arguing that he had been an efficient and cooperative partner on immigration and crime enforcement in Washington’s southern suburbs.
But Mr. Trump responded to repeated entreaties by saying, “I don’t care,” according to a person with knowledge of the matter. His position seemed to be that he had been warned several times during his first term about firing U.S. attorneys, given that it could have put him in jeopardy, and he ended up being investigated after leaving office anyhow, the person said.
While U.S. attorneys are appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the president, they like to think of themselves as having some measure of professional autonomy, said Barbara L. McQuade, a former U.S. attorney in Detroit who teaches at the University of Michigan Law School. That sense of independence largely arises from measures put in place in the 1970s, after the Watergate scandal, dictating that partisan politics should never play a role in a prosecutor’s decision-making process.
“U.S. attorneys pride themselves on saying that we act without fear or favor,” Ms. McQuade said. “But if you see other U.S. attorneys getting fired for failing to comply with orders from the White House, well, that could lead to fear. And if you are letting someone off the hook for political reasons, well, that is favor. Both are inappropriate.”
www.mediaite.com /media/news/trump-publicly-pressures-pam-bondi-to-charge-his-political-enemies-in-stunning-truth-social-post-we-cant-delay-any-longer/
Trump Publicly Pressures Pam Bondi to Charge His Political Enemies in Stunning Truth Social Post: ‘W ...
Sean James 3-4 minutes 9/20/2025
President Donald Trump urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to bring criminal charges against political enemies like Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and former FBI Director James Comey , saying further delays are only “killing our reputation and credibility.”
In a statement to his Truth Social platform Saturday night, the president turned up the heat on his attorney general to take “action” against Schiff, Comey, and New York Attorney General Letitia James — to name just a few. Here’s the shocking post in full:
Halligan is a former personal attorney for Trump who currently serves in his administration as a special assistant.
The president has ripped Comey and Schiff in the past for pushing bogus claims he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Trump, in 2023, called Schiff a “sleazebag and traitor” who “should be prosecuted for the damage he has done” to the U.S. And Trump has criticized Comey a number of times for leading what he has called the Russia “witch hunt” over the years.
Bondi, meanwhile, was already called out this week by many prominent conservatives, including The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, for saying she would target “hate speech” against slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk . Walsh said Bondi should be fired for that comment, as well as her claim that businesses must allow customers to print posters honoring Kirk.
Hehe. Todd Gilbert. I wonder if he's regretting voting for leopards to eat his face. He spoke at my son's graduation, and made it about his political achievements. Asshole.
This is from Virginia's Senator Tim Kaine, who, along with Mark Warner, nominated Gilbert to the position:
Says the guy with 34 felonies and not so much as a day in jail. Fuck that guy. .
The People shocked by this supported an official campaigning to get trump (didn’t know for what law, but he’d find one, formed a legal team specifically to find a theory to prosecute him, and settled on a felony that resurrected two expired misdemeanors, one of which no one had every been convicted before. Then used a conflicted anti trump judge to Shepard it home,
now they are enraged trump is acting like them.
Has Trump ever won one of the legal cases that was brought against him? If it wasnt for the Supreme Court and the election he'd be in prison now.
Here we have the president of the United States demanding his political opponents be charged with crimes . What crimes? Lets see if this idiot can even describe what their crimes were. You know he cant.
Exactly. He’s using their playbook. Humor is a great way to start a day!
The leftist playbook is to use the courts to get your ideas won.
Leftists are mad Trump is using the same rules they originated....and doing it better then them.
The rightist playbook is to use the courts to get your ideas won.
How much was trumpy suing the NYT for again? Nah, never mind, yet another BS lawsuit by trump that was laughed out of court.
He made a social media post and addressed it to his Attorney General. Does his phone not work? Has he heard about DMs?
Do you really think he's smart enough to use it? He clearly has serious mental problems.
It's clear Trump wants to humiliate Bondi publicly, so when he 'releases' her the nation will know why on background. How much more of this are we forced to withstand? And do note: The president of the United States without any law degree has judged whom is "guilty as hell." This is outrageous.
A little insight as to the lecture Putin gave Trump when they met in Helsinki. Squash all opposition by destroying the media, punishing his imagined enemies, then actively foment violence with the goal of martial law and ending democracy.
And the rest of the country sat around looking at this like they were spectators in their own country. Food for Thought: Let's say Trump does NOT succeed in his efforts to break democracy. . .and leaves what remains to be done up to his successor. Where were you?
Rut roh, Pam. Better start licking those boots harder, or you'll be out of the job. Didn't you learn anything from Jeff Sessions?
I'm surprised she wasn't out of a job the moment she told trumpy that his name is all over the Epstein files.