WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday said he would target former President Joe Biden’s circle, calling them “evil people.”

“There were some brilliant people,” Trump remarked, alluding to Biden’s allies in his administration. “Yet they’re corrupt individuals, and they will be brought down. They must be brought down because they’ve truly harmed our nation.”

Trump’s declaration to “bring down” his rival’s allies is his latest initiative in potentially targeting political foes, a pattern that has worried critics who accuse him of seeking vengeance and allege he is politicizing the Justice Department—a claim Trump himself has attributed to the Biden administration.

NBC News reached out to Biden’s office for comment.

Trump delivered these remarks during extensive discussions in the Oval Office, where he and his associates made various assertions about the effects of his anti-crime initiatives in D.C. and top officials took turns lauding him. While signing executive orders to eliminate cash bail, Trump repeatedly spotlighted the city’s murder rate, noting there had been 11 days without a single murder—a statistic he has been highlighting recently as he underscores his administration’s crime-fighting efforts in D.C. Those efforts have involved placing the D.C. police force under federal control, deploying the National Guard, and increasing federal law enforcement presence in the area.

Trump claimed that the city’s restaurants are thriving, although restaurant workers in a D.C. region with a significant immigrant populace told NBC News last week that business was slowing due to Trump’s policies. His deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, attended the signing with Vice President JD Vance, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and stated that D.C. residents have gone back to wearing jewelry and carrying purses because of Trump’s crime-fighting measures.

“They’re wearing jewelry again. They’re carrying purses again,” Miller asserted. “People had altered their entire lifestyles in this city out of fear of getting killed, mugged, or carjacked. It is literally true that President Trump has liberated 700,000 people in this city who were living under the control of criminals and thugs.”

However, at the outset of the operation, crime in D.C. had decreased by 26% compared to the previous year. Many city inhabitants, in fact, have criticized the deployments and said it is alarming Washingtonians.

The president has frequently claimed that Democrats weaponized the Justice Department and other law enforcement agencies against him, pointing to his criminal indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents, and his conviction on charges of falsifying business records. Those charges were later dropped when he was elected to a second term. Trump repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the cases against him.

Democrats have gone after Trump’s comments, arguing that the Trump administration’s several investigations into his political foes constitute the exact weaponization that he claimed they pursued against him.

The Justice Department is investigating Sen. am Schiff, D-Calif., and New York Attorney General Letitia James on allegations of mortgage fraud.

James led a civil fraud case against Trump, and Schiff served as the lead House manager in Trump’s first impeachment trial. They denied any wrongdoing.

NBC News has also previously reported that the Justice Department is in the initial stages of an investigation into James’ handling of her civil fraud case against Trump, which her attorney likened to a “political retribution campaign.”

Trump also threatened Friday to fire a Federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook, if she did not resign after facing separate accusations of mortgage fraud. Cook said she won’t step down. Trump has been highly critical of the Federal Reserve for not adjusting interest rates as he would like.

Then, late last week, the FBI searched the home of former national security adviser John Bolton. A source familiar with the matter told NBC News at the time that the search was part of a “national security investigation in search of classified records.” Bolton did not respond to NBC News’ request for comment Friday.

Also on Monday, Trump left the door open to investigating former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a staunch critic of Trump who was among the Republicans who ran against him for president. Trump was referring to a 12-year-old scandal called “Bridgegate.”

“If they want to look at it, they can,” Trump said, responding to a question about whether the White House planned to investigate Christie. “You can ask Pam. I think we have other things to do, but I always thought he got away with murder.”

On Sunday, after Christie criticized him on ABC News’ “This Week,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social, “For the sake of JUSTICE, perhaps we should start looking at that very serious situation again?”

Meanwhile, Trump’s allies in Congress have pushed to hear testimony from Biden’s circle about his mental acuity while in office, which Trump and Republicans claim was in decline but was covered up by the former president’s team. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has sought testimony from Biden’s former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor and former White House aides, including his domestic policy adviser, Neera Tanden and his deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini.