WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump defended his allies Friday while calling for his political opponents to be jailed during a speech at the headquarters of the Justice Department that was prosecuting him just months ago.

Trump called U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who helped dismiss his classified documents case, a “brilliant” judge, while condemning “horrible human beings” whom he accused of disparaging Cannon.

“It’s totally illegal what they do. I just hope you can all watch for it, but it’s totally illegal, and it was so unfair what they were doing to her,” Trump said.

After deeming the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 as “the most humiliating time in this history of our country,” Trump called for the people behind the decision, officials from the Biden administration, to be imprisoned.

“The people who did this to us should go to jail. They should go to jail,” he said.

Trump’s remarks are not the first time he has called to imprison his political opponents or railed against negative media coverage. But the venue of his speech — delivering the remarks at the Justice Department to a room full of its top officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, portray how his previous campaign trail threats of vengeance and retribution have taken on significantly higher stakes now that he wields the enormous power of the presidency.

Trump also noted the significance of his remarks at the Justice Department, becoming on Friday the third president this century to deliver a speech at the agency’s headquarters.

“I was asked to do it, and I said, ‘Is it appropriate that I do it?’ And then I realized it’s not only appropriate, I think it’s really important, and I may never do it again,” Trump said. “I may never have another chance to do it again, because this is something that I’m leaving to the greatest people I know, the best people, the smartest people, the toughest people I know, and they’re going to do an incredible job.”