Before his reelection, Donald Trump wanted the Justice Department to pay him as much as $230 million in damages for past investigations — a demand that was going nowhere until Trump blurted out a vague reference to it last week, top officials tell Axios.
- Now its fate is uncertain.
Why it matters: The New York Times, which first reported Trump's demand, pointed out that "any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit."
Now, of course, the Justice Department is stacked top to bottom with Trump loyalists. But there'd been no internal conversation about the matter since the inauguration, until Trump himself reopened it while talking to the press in the Oval Office last week, a senior administration official told us.
- Trump said, without explanation, that he'd brought "a great lawsuit" against DOJ based on its previous investigations of him, but added that it now "sort of looks bad — I'm suing myself, right?
Behind the scenes: The officials told Axios that Trump's claims, filed during Joe Biden's presidency, came up internally during the transition but haven't been pursued since the 2024 election. The officials didn't confirm the total amount.
- A source involved with the transition between Trump's reelection and his inauguration in January said: "This came up during the transition and at first we thought: 'Oh, no. He's going to sue himself?' Then, when we realized it was filed against the Biden Justice Department, the word was that it was just dropped."
The Times says that when Trump was out of office, he submitted complaints through an administrative claim process that's often the precursor to lawsuits:
- The first claim, in late 2023, seeks damages for the FBI and special counsel investigation into Russian election tampering and possible connections to Trump's 2016 campaign.
- The second claim, in summer 2024, accuses the FBI of violating Trump's privacy by searching Mar-a-Lago for classified documents in 2022. That complaint also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution in charging him with mishandling sensitive records.
Trump reopened the issue during an appearance in the Oval Office last week with Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel, as he was discussing the FBI's 2022 raid on Mar-a-Lago.
- "I have a lawsuit that was doing very well. And when I became president, I said: 'I'm sort of suing myself,' " he said.
- "How do you settle the lawsuit? I'll say: 'Give me X dollars,' right? And I don't know what to do with the lawsuit — it's a great lawsuit. And now I won. 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."
The senior administration official told us there had been "no conversation about this at any level since Inauguration Day. It's like it didn't even exist."
- "But then the president said what he said, and here we are," the official added. "Beyond that, there has been no communication or movement on this whatsoever. It's not a thing — at least, it's not a thing right now."
What they're saying: Asked about the issue Tuesday, Trump refused to renounce or advance his demand.
- He repeatedly used the conditional verb "would," leaving open the possibility he'd pursue his claims.
- "All I know is that [the federal government] would owe me a lot of money," he told reporters. "I'm not looking for money. I'd give it to charity or something. I would give it to charity, any money."
Trump then ran through his list of grievances and returned to the conflict of interest the situation created.
- "Now with the country, it's interesting, because I'm the one that makes a decision, right? And you know that decision would have to go across my desk," he said, calling it "awfully strange" to be "paying myself."
- "In other words," he asked, "did you ever have one of those cases where you have to decide how much you're paying yourself in damages? But I was damaged very greatly, and any money that I would get I would give to charity."
- A Justice Department official said: "In any circumstance, all officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials."
This story was updated with comments from Trump.
