US President Donald Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him around $230 million in compensation for federal investigations against him.
The case, reported Tuesday by the New York Timesis unprecedented in the history of the United States.
Mr. Trump filed two different complaints, in late 2023 and during the summer of 2024, before his election in November 2024. These seek damages following the search of his Mar-a-Lago property in August 2022, while the FBI was looking for classified documents; and following the investigation into potential links between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign.
People familiar with the matter have indicated that a deal between Trump and the Justice Department could be approved by senior department officials who have defended him or by people in his inner circle.
Questioned on this subject by journalists at the White House, the American president underlined the irony of the situation. “This decision should go through my office, and it is extremely strange to make a decision that affects me financially,” he said.
“The ethical conflict is so obvious that you don’t have to be a law professor to explain it,” said Bennett L. Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University, at New York Times.
With the New York Times
