With AG Bondi Next To Him, Trump Says ‘Deranged’ Jack Smith Must be Investigated

President Donald Trump in an Oval Office press conference Wednesday declared former Special Counsel Jack Smith a “criminal” and said he hoped someone would “look into” him and other former Department of Justice (DOJ) officials.

Trump’s words appeared intended as a message to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who stood next to him as he spoke.

Responding to a question regarding the House Judiciary Committee seeking testimony from Smith, Trump asserted that Smith’s probes into his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and his mishandling of government records, including classified documents, were “criminal.”

“I think it was the worst weaponization of a political opponent in the history of the world, let alone this country,” Trump claimed. “But what they did was criminal.”

“Deranged Jack Smith in my opinion is a criminal,” Trump added before next targeting Andrew Weissmann, a NYU School of Law professor who interviewed Smith during a UCL Laws event earlier this week.

“I hope they are going to look into Weissmann too. Weissmann’s a bad guy,” the president said. “There was tremendous criminal activity.”

Weissmann is also a former DOJ official, having served extensively throughout the Bush and Obama administrations. In 2017, he was appointed to a key role on Robert Mueller’s special counsel team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and alleged links and coordination between the Russian government and Trump’s presidential campaign.

In addition to Smith and Weissman, Trump suggested that “they” should go after Lisa Monaco, the former deputy attorney general, and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). 

Though the president didn’t specify exactly who “they” were, Trump’s declarations Wednesday evoked his social media post last month, in which he directly ordered Bondi to go after his perceived enemies more aggressively.

Trump sent the post, which undermined the department’s longstanding tradition of pursuing impartial justice, in error, thinking it was a private message to Bondi, according to the Wall Street Journal and NBC News.

Trump Wednesday also falsely asserted that he was the country’s top law enforcement official, a title that instead belongs to the attorney general.

Shortly after he sent the post, Lindsey Halligan, one of Trump’s former personal lawyers turned acting U.S. attorney of the Eastern District of Virginia, brought charges against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James (D).