Former President Obama in hot water for remarks on 'politicization of criminal justice system'

Former President Barack Obama.

Former President Barack Obama has been heavily criticized on social media this week after remarks he made in an interview with Stephen Colbert suggesting President Trump has weaponized the U.S. Department of Justice.

Obama, who appeared on CBS' The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, is promoting his presidential library, which is set to open next month in Chicago. The interview was wide-ranging, but, unsurprisingly, eventually focused on Obama's immediate successor, President Donald Trump. 

"Now that you're no longer in office, what powers do you believe the president should not have?" Colbert asked. 

"The White House shouldn't be able to direct the attorney general to go around prosecuting whoever the president wants prosecuted. You can't have a situation where whoever is in charge of the government starts using that to go after their political enemies or reward their friends," Obama said. "We can't overcome the politicization of the criminal justice system, the awesome power of the state," Obama said at one point in the interview.

The remarks drew heavy blowback from conservatives given what has come to light about how the Obama Justice Department obstructed the incoming Trump administration in 2016 and 2017, and how the Biden Justice Department leveled all-out legal warfare against Trump in a futile attempt to prevent him from winning a second term.

Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, blasted Obama in a post on X. "You, Biden, Brennan, Comey and Clapper sandbagged Trump with false charges of collusion and then launched the bogus Steele dossier against Trump," Fleischer said in response to Obama's remarks. "Not to mention what you did to countless WH and campaign aides."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis echoed Flesicher's sentiment, saying on X, "The Russia collusion hoax would like a word."

CBS News gave Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was on the legal team that defended Trump from federal charges brought by the Biden Justice Department, a chance to respond to Obama's accusations. Blanched responded by pulling out a pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution, and then read from Article II of the Constitution, which he said makes the Attorney General of the United States a Cabinet position. "How about we think about what happened the past four years?" Watch Blanche's response below.