What happened
President Donald Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for previous federal investigations, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
Trump’s “potential windfall,” funded by “U.S. taxpayers,” would need approval from a “Justice Department he has publicly said works for him,” The Washington Post said, and specifically from top DOJ officials “who represented Trump in the investigations at the center of his claims.” Asked about the reports, Trump said Tuesday that the government owed him “a lot of money” and any payout decision “would have to go across my desk.”
Who said what
Trump filed claims with the Justice Department in 2023 and 2024 for alleged damages he suffered from investigations into his 2016 campaign’s ties to Russia and his retention of classified documents. His compensation demand was “going nowhere” until he “blurted out a vague reference to it last week,” Axios said.
“When I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself,” Trump said during an Oct. 15 appearance with Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right?” Blanche was Trump’s lead defense lawyer in the classified documents case and is now one of two DOJ officials eligible to approve a payout.
This “travesty” is “bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe,” Pace University ethics professor Bennett Gershman told the Times. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.” Trump said Tuesday he didn’t know “the numbers” for a settlement, but “I’m not looking for money. I’d give it to charity or something.” The charities Trump designated in recent settlements were foundations supporting his presidential library.
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What next?
The Justice Department declined to comment on whether Blanche would recuse himself, but said all DOJ officials “follow the guidance of career ethics officials.” Bondi “fired the agency’s top ethics adviser” in July, the Times said. And because the DOJ “does not specifically require” it, there may be no official announcement “if or when the Trump administration pays the president what could be hundreds of millions of dollars.”
