"Deranged Jack Smith, in my opinion, is a criminal," President Donald Trump said during a press conference in the Oval Office on Wednesday. The sentiment was not new: Everyone knows that Trump has a grudge against Smith, the former special counsel who obtained two federal indictments against him, which Trump described as "the worst weaponization" of the justice system "in the history of the world." But the fact that the president offered his assessment of Smith alongside three top federal law enforcement officials—Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel—made it seem more like marching orders than his usual airing of grievances.

Bondi, Blanche, and Patel are all Trump loyalists who previously worked for him personally. Bondi served on T

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