President Trump’s triumphant speech on Friday afternoon at the Great Hall of the Department of Justice is a reversal drenched with enough irony and drama to make William Shakespeare proud. 

Mr. Trump appeared to suggest that criticism of courts could be unlawful, declaring, “It has to stop, it has to be illegal, influencing judges.” The 47th president also called the cases against him “bulls—” and reasoned that criticism of Judge Aileen Cannon, who handed him a major victory in the Mar-a-Lago case, “only made her angry.” He called her “brilliant,” and “the absolute model of what a judge should be.”

The president, who was charged in four separate criminal cases, two of which came from justice department prosecutors, reckoned, “We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls. Unfortunately, in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated that trust and goodwill built up over generations.”

Mr. Trump ventured: “Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice,” adding that as “the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.” The headquarters of the DOJ is named after President Kennedy’s attorney general, his brother Robert F. Kennedy, the father of Mr. Trump’s health and human services secretary.

Just months ago, Mr. Trump faced two criminal prosecutions — for election interference and retention of classified documents — led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, the handpicked prosecutor of Attorney General Garland. When Mr. Trump served as the 45th president, he was dogged by another DOJ investigation undertaken by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. 

Mr. Trump’s victory over Vice President Harris in November, though, effectively ended Mr. Smith’s push to convict him. The DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that there is a “categorical” prohibition on prosecuting a sitting president. That bound Mr. Smith to move for the dismissal of his cases, though the prosecutor maintained in his final report that “but for” Mr. Trump’s re-election convictions were in the cards. 

Even before Mr. Trump secured the protection afforded to sitting presidents, he secured important victories in respect of presidential immunity — that came from the Supreme Court — and when Judge Cannon determined that Mr. Smith was unlawfully appointed. She also blocked the release of Mr. Smith’s final report on his prosecution of Mr. Trump for storing classified documents.

Now Mr. Trump has, in Attorney General Bondi, a high official who declared that her aim is to “make him proud” and that, “We all work for the greatest president in the history of our country.” She has convened a “Weaponization Working Group” to investigate, among other subjects, Mr. Smith’s pursuit of Mr. Trump. Gone are prosecutors who worked on Mr. Smith’s team as well as many of those who labored over the more than 1,000 cases relating to January 6.

The president spoke to the Department of Justice weeks after the decision to drop criminal bribery charges against Mayor Adams precipitated a crisis both at Main Justice and the Southern District of New York. The acting United States attorney for that office resigned rather than move for dismissal. Some eight other senior prosecutors followed suit, including the lead lawyer on the case.

The command to abandon the prosecution of Mr. Adams came from the principal deputy attorney general, Emil Bove — then acting deputy attorney general — who has also represented Mr. Trump in his criminal cases. That experience is shared by the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, as well as Mr. Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, John Sauer.

It’s been a decade since a sitting president visited the DOJ, when President Obama attended a retirement ceremony for his attorney general, Eric Holder, whom the House found to be in contempt of Congress, the first Cabinet officer to suffer that ignominity. Mr. Garland was also so held.