“What a travesty,” one ethics lawyer said. “The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”
Mike Johnson won't swear in Adelita Grijalva. So we're suing. www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnb... GOOD! Mike Johnson is a weak little man who thinks he works for the Disease in the White House. He is paid by & works for the American People.
— Liberty & Justice (@stand4truth.bsky.social) 2025-10-21T22:11:10.455Z
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-eyes-230-million-payout-justice-dept-repayment-earlier-investiga-rcna238987
After whining about the FBI’s court-approved search of Mar-a-Lago and peddling a variety of false and familiar claims about his classified documents scandal, the Republican said, “I ha
ve a lawsuit that was doing very well, and when I became president, I said I’m sort of suing myself.”
He quickly added,
“I don’t know, how do you settle the lawsuit? I’ll say, ‘Give me X dollars,’ right?”
The comments went largely unremarked, although they’re suddenly relevant anew. The New York Times reported:
President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him, according to people familiar with the matter, who added that any settlement might ultimately be approved by senior department officials who defended him or those in his orbit.
......Will such a gambit succeed? The Times’ report added,
“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,’ meaning the person who oversees the agency’s civil division.”
The deputy attorney general, it just so happens, led Trump’s criminal defense team before he was tapped to lead the DOJ. What’s more, the chief of the department’s civil division, Stanley Woodward Jr., also represented people in Trump’s orbit, including a Trump co-defendant and Patel (before the latter was confirmed to lead the FBI).
Bennett Gershman, an ethics professor at Pace University, told the Times,
“What a travesty. The ethical conflict is just so basic and fundamental, you don’t need a law professor to explain it.”
He added,
“And then to have people in the Justice Department decide whether his claim should be successful or not, and these are the people who serve him deciding whether he wins or loses. It’s bizarre and almost too outlandish to believe.”
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