LEILA FADEL, HOST:
President Trump is expected to make a short trip down Pennsylvania Avenue today to visit the Justice Department.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Yeah, he's going to deliver a speech, which the White House bills as being about law and order. Trump's visit comes at a turbulent time for the department, where Trump appointees have pushed out career officials at the department who they deem insufficiently loyal to the president.
FADEL: NPR justice correspondent Ryan Lucas joins us now with more. Good morning, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Good morning.
FADEL: OK, so how unusual is it for a president to deliver a speech at the Justice Department?
LUCAS: It's a pretty rare thing. Biden never did it. Trump didn't do it in his first term. In fact, I could only find four occasions that it has happened since 2000. Twice President Obama did it. The first time was a speech about changes his administration was making to surveillance programs. The other time was at a farewell ceremony for his first attorney general. The other two instances were early in President George W. Bush's administration, one of them being a ceremony in 2001 to rename the department's headquarters after Robert F. Kennedy. So it is rare for a president to do this.
Historically, presidents keep their distance from the Justice Department. There's been a norm for decades now - respected by both Republican and Democratic administrations - that the department should be independent and free from political interference. But President Trump has made clear that he has a very different idea about the relationship between the president and the Justice Department.
FADEL: Yeah. So what do we expect to hear from the president in his speech?
LUCAS: Well, we heard a bit of it at the top. The White House says Trump is going to talk about restoring law and order, about removing violent criminals from communities and ending what the White House says is the weaponization of justice against Americans for their political leanings. And that last idea there is a central theme for Trump, his allies on the Hill and for his new Justice Department leadership. Trump, of course, argues that he was unfairly targeted by federal prosecutors during the Biden administration. He has promised vengeance. The new Justice Department leadership talks a lot about ending the purported weaponization and politicization of the Justice Department in recent years. But at the same time, they have taken punitive action against nonpolitical career prosecutors and officials who worked on investigations or issues that Trump doesn't like.
FADEL: Yeah. I mean, there's been quite the purge. Just recap some of the punitive actions we've seen.
LUCAS: Well, for one, the new department leadership has fired prosecutors who worked on the special counsel investigations into Trump, saying that those folks couldn't be trusted to implement the president's agenda. They have fired prosecutors who worked on the January 6 Capitol riot cases. They've demoted senior career prosecutors who worked cases involving Trump allies. The Justice Department frames this as ending weaponization, but critics say that these actions appear to be retaliation against folks who worked cases the president didn't like.
Now, at the same time, the department has cut breaks for Trump allies. Critics point to the Justice Department's decision to dismiss corruption charges against the New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Adams has pledged to cooperate with Trump's immigration enforcement. More than a half dozen veteran Justice Department prosecutors resigned in protest. That includes the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, who said there was no good-faith basis to drop the Adams case.
FADEL: So with all of the things that have happened in the past few weeks, what sort of reception do you expect Trump to receive today?
LUCAS: It's a good question. You know, it's no secret, as we've said, that Trump has been extremely critical of the Justice Department over the years. So it's going to be interesting to see what he has to say, how he says it, as he lays out his vision for the department in the very building that he has been so critical of.
FADEL: NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thank you, Ryan.
LUCAS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR鈥檚 programming is the audio record.
