At a recent press conference, Donald Trump was asked whether he believes he can convince Russia’s Vladimir Putin to stop targeting civilians in Ukraine. The American president delivered a long, meandering answer in which he suggested he has no such expectations ahead of his summit in Alaska.

But as part of the same rant, the Republican also sent an unsubtle signal to the nation’s chief law enforcement official, who was in attendance at the event.

Over the course of about two minutes, Trump blamed Joe Biden for the war Putin started, pretended his own Russia scandal was a “hoax,” falsely accused a variety of perceived Democratic foes of wrongdoing (he referenced Sen. Adam Schiff and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by name), wildly mischaracterized former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and findings, and pointed to recent intelligence revelations that don’t exist.

At that point, the president looked at Attorney General Pam Bondi and said, “I’m looking at Pam because I hope something’s going to be done about it. These people put our country at great danger.”

For good measure, he added, “Now we’ve learned all the stuff that’s come out over the last two months is incredible, through intelligence, and hopefully something is going to happen with it. These are people that put our country in danger, in real danger.”

It’s been about a month since Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard tried to discredit Trump’s Russia scandal and started throwing around words like “treason,” though her claims have completely fallen apart.

Recommended

Maddowblog

Trump keeps finding new ways to deliver rewards to Putin’s Russia

Steve Benen

Maddowblog

Instead of imposing sanctions, Trump finds new ways to give Putin what he wants

Steve Benen

Indeed, every independent analysis of Gabbard’s findings has concluded that her findings were a joke: There was no “hoax”; the underlying scandal remains real; and the DNI’s claims were “ludicrous.” Officials from Democratic and Republican administrations have urged the public to recognize Gabbard’s conspiracy theories as obvious nonsense, after intelligence officials launched a behind-the-scenes effort to discourage the DNI from even releasing her discredited claims in the first place.

But Bondi has nevertheless directed Justice Department prosecutors to launch a grand jury investigation based almost entirely on Gabbard’s claims, and while Trump has occasionally pretended to be detached from the process, there was the president on Wednesday — in public, on camera, speaking on the record — explicitly lobbying the attorney general, letting her know that he wants “something … to happen” with the pointless probe.

Some of the White House’s critics have argued that Trump is politicizing and weaponizing the Justice Department as part of a larger effort to convince his appointees to pursue his partisan foes. It was a helpful change of pace to see the president proving his critics right.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.