US President Trump has submitted claims demanding about $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for federal investigations conducted against him.
The claims represent a situation without parallel in American history, according to The New York Times (NYT), which cited people familiar with the matter.
Trump, while a candidate, faced pursuit by federal law enforcement and subsequently won the election, taking control of the government now tasked with reviewing his demands.
Trump seeks millions in damages from Justice Department over Russia probe and Mar-a-Lago search
Trump lodged the first claim in late 2023 through an administrative process that precedes lawsuits.
The claim seeks damages for violations of his rights, including the FBI and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and connections to the 2016 Trump campaign, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The second complaint, filed in summer 2024, accuses the FBI of violating Trump’s privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago, his club and residence in Florida, in 2022 for classified documents.
The claim also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling records after he left office.
Speaking at the White House after the article published, the president said: “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”
“I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself,” he added.
Trump acknowledges conflict
The president appeared to acknowledge the conflict in the Oval Office last week while standing next to FBI director Kash Patel, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and her deputy, Todd Blanche.
“I have a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said, I’m sort of suing myself,” Trump said. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right? So I don’t know. But that was a lawsuit that was very strong, very powerful.”
According to Justice Department regulations, the deputy attorney general is one of two people eligible to sign off on such a settlement. In this case, that would be Blanche.
Administrative claims process
Administrative claims are not lawsuits. Such complaints are submitted first to the Justice Department on a Standard Form 95 to determine if a settlement can be reached without a lawsuit in federal court.
If the department rejects such a claim or declines to act, a person could then sue in court. That outcome appears unlikely given that Trump is negotiating with his subordinates.
Compensation is covered by taxpayers. Two people familiar with the president’s claims said he had not been paid by the federal government but expected to be.
Accusations of harassment
The second claim accused Merrick B. Garland, then the attorney general, Christopher A. Wray, then the FBI director, and Jack Smith, the special counsel investigating Trump at the time, of “harassment” intended to sway the electoral outcome.
“This malicious prosecution led President Trump to spend tens of millions of dollars defending the case and his reputation,” the claim said.
Key officials have Trump connections
According to the Justice Department manual, settlements of claims against the department for more than $4 million “must be approved by the deputy attorney general or associate attorney general.”
The deputy attorney general, Blanche, served as Trump’s lead criminal defence lawyer and said at his confirmation hearing in February that his attorney-client relationship with the president continued.
The chief of the department’s civil division, Stanley Woodward Jr., represented Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta, in the classified documents case.
Woodward has also represented other Trump aides, including Patel, in investigations related to Trump or the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Justice Department responds
According to the NYT report, a spokesman for the president’s legal team said he was fighting back against the Russia investigation he has denounced as a witch hunt and what he has called the weaponisation of the criminal justice system by the Biden administration.
A White House spokeswoman referred questions to the Justice Department. Asked if either Blanche or Woodward would recuse or had been recused from overseeing the settlement with Trump, a Justice Department spokesman, Chad Gilmartin, said: “In any circumstance, all officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials.” In July, Bondi fired the agency’s top ethics adviser.
In addition, Trump has opposed recusals in the past. He complained after his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, withdrew from overseeing the Russia investigation that is now the subject of one of his demands for money.
“The attorney general made a terrible mistake when he did this and when he recused himself,” Trump said in 2018. “He should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a — put a different attorney general in.”
Potential lack of transparency
The Justice Department does not require an announcement of settlements made for administrative claims before they become lawsuits.
If or when the Trump administration pays the president what could be hundreds of millions of dollars, there may be no official declaration, according to current and former department officials.
Former officials have privately expressed concerns that the department’s leaders did not reject Trump’s claims in the waning days of the Biden administration, the report said, adding that it has been standard practice for civil litigation, including lawsuits against the government, to be paused until criminal cases around the same facts have been resolved.
