00:00Trump caught lying about pushing DOJ to punish political foes.
00:05President Donald Trump pushed back against accusations that his administration is using the Department of Justice to punish political opponents during a tense exchange with CBS News anchor Nora O'Donnell on 60 Minutes.
00:17O'Donnell directly confronted Trump with the recent indictments of several of his outspoken critics.
00:22James Comey, John Bolton, Letitia James were all recently indicted, O'Donnell said.
00:28There is a pattern to these names. They're all public figures who have publicly denounced you. Is it political retribution?
00:36Trump immediately rejected the idea.
00:39You know who got indicted? The man you're looking at. I got indicted and I was innocent, he said.
00:44And here I am because I was able to beat all of the nonsense that was thrown at me.
00:48And yet when you go after a dirty cop like Comey or a guy like Bolton, Letitia James is a terrible, dishonest person in my opinion.
00:55When asked if he directed the DOJ to go after them, Trump firmly denied it.
01:01No, and not in any way, shape or form.
01:04No, he said.
01:05Pam Bondi's doing a very good job.
01:07Kash Patel's doing a very good job.
01:09However, O'Donnell countered with a fact-checking segment during the broadcast.
01:14In a voiceover, she pointed to a Truth Social post from September,
01:17in which Trump addressed Bondi writing that Comey and James were guilty as hell and declaring,
01:23Justice must be served now.
01:25Within days, both Comey and James were indicted.
01:28And both pled not guilty, as did Bolton.
01:31On September 25th, a grand jury charged Comey with allegedly making false statements to Congress
01:36and obstructing a congressional investigation.
01:38The charges accuse him of lying about whether he authorized an associate to act as an anonymous source to the media
01:45regarding the Steele dossier and the Hillary Clinton email probe.
01:49Bolton faces 18 counts related to alleged mishandling of classified documents.
01:54He's accused of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information about his time as national security advisor.
02:00Despite mounting criticism, Trump insisted the prosecutions reflect the DOJ's pursuit of crooked officials,
02:06not political payback, as he continues to portray himself as the victim of a long-running campaign against him.
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