Donald Trump is rapidly transforming the presidency into a massive Bribe Delivery System. For convenience’s sake, let’s refer to this going forward as Trump’s presidential “BDS.”
This is underscored by the jarring news that Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him $230 million in compensation related to various federal actions against him. As The New York Times reports, Trump submitted claims in 2023 and 2024 seeking “damages” stemming from the investigation into Russian interference in 2016 and his prosecution for stealing classified documents at the end of his first term.
Now that Trump is president again, he is still demanding those payments, sources told the Times. And one of the officials who would decide the matter is Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—one of Trump’s former personal attorneys.
Ethics experts point out that Trump now appears in a position to command his subordinates to hand him $230 million in taxpayer money. As the Times delicately put it, Trump expects this to happen.
But it gets even worse.
In an interview, Representative Jamie Raskin—who is investigating this as ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee—said his staff’s research indicates that these payments can probably be made confidentially at first, with no immediate public disclosure.
“Our reading is that, even though this is a private settlement, it doesn’t have to be disclosed anywhere until there is an accounting of where all the money has gone at the end of the year,” Raskin told me.
This is because Trump is seeking these payments via an internal DOJ administrative claims process, a spokesperson for House Judiciary Committee Democrats says, which is typically confidential. Though any payments would come out eventually in a later report to Congress, a payment could be made confidentially well before DOJ makes a public disclosure.
“I’m not aware of any reason this would automatically be made public at the time it happened,” says Dan Weiner, a lawyer at the Brennan Center.
It’s hard to fathom how bad this is. Start with the claims themselves: In 2023, Trump sought damages from DOJ from the Russia investigation, which he’s called a “hoax” for years. But while that probe had some serious problems, DOJ’s inspector general concluded it was legitimately predicated, and a GOP-led Senate committee, chaired by the fellow who’s now Trump’s secretary of state, confirmed in August 2020 that Russia did attempt to swing the election to Trump. Of course his campaign’s potential role in this had to be investigated.
Then, in 2024, Trump sought damages related to the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago. But that search did yield powerful evidence that Trump was criminally hoarding classified documents.
Regardless, for Trump to continue seeking these payments as president is even more wildly corrupt. The conflict-of-interest issues involved in Blanche making this decision are obvious. This is probably unconstitutional, too.
“The domestic Emoluments Clause says the president may not receive any compensation at all from the U.S. government or the states beyond his official salary,” Raskin told me. “This means he cannot be ordering government officials to write checks to the president.”
Trump, for his part, told reporters that “I’m the one that makes the decision.” Though Trump did admit this is “awfully strange,” his quote should be understood as an open declaration that he can command Blanche to sign off on the payment.
Watch Trump here:
Trump: “It’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself. But I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get I would give to charity.” pic.twitter.com/k7MVfcZX6z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 21, 2025
Note that Trump also declared this would be legitimate, saying: “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.” Even if you take that last claim at face value—which you shouldn’t—this isn’t his money to give.
In our interview, Raskin added more detail on what he’ll seek in the investigation that Judiciary Committee Democrats just announced. Raskin said he will demand internal communications between the White House and DOJ, including Blanche himself, about these claims, and any communications indicating that Trump is pressing DOJ to make the payment or shedding light on DOJ deliberations about it.
“We want the entire paper trail,” Raskin told me. “We’re looking for any correspondence, memoranda, or records of conversations between the White House and the Department of Justice. If we had subpoena power, we would be going after that.”
Raskin noted that if Democrats had power, they would also subpoena “any interactions between Blanche and Trump or Trump and other DOJ officials.” This also telegraphs what Democrats will seek by subpoena if they win the House. “We are demanding this information for the public,” Raskin said.
Republicans on the Judiciary Committee, led by Trump water-carrier Jim Jordan of Ohio, will stonewall all of this—yet more enabling of Trump’s world-historical corruption and consolidation of autocratic power. But Raskin said he will press the case when the committee convenes next.
“I will say that we should consider this a civic emergency from the standpoint of the Judiciary Committee,” Raskin told me. “Are we going to have presidents from here on in just shaking down the Department of Justice or other parts of the U.S. government for money to put in their pockets?”
There’s also the Blanche angle. As Marcy Wheeler points out, Blanche is involved in DOJ decisions—from prosecuting Trump’s enemies to signing off on potentially illegal deportations—that could make him legally vulnerable later. If Trump really wants DOJ to hand over these “damages,” could Blanche really say no, given that he may be dependent on Trump for a pardon later?
“It goes without saying that anybody in the Trump administration who violates the law is now expecting a pardon from Donald Trump,” Raskin told me, though he didn’t directly address Blanche. “If you want the protection of the president, you need to comply with his every wish.”
As an aside, Democrats should consider pushing legislation that more concretely bans such administrative claim payments to presidents (and other officials) even if the claims predated their service. Yes, Republicans will block a vote on it. Let them punt, then take it to the country.
It’s always possible that Trump will decide against such payments. But even if he does, would that have happened if this whole scandal had never been disclosed?
As writer John Ganz points out, this sort of corruption is foundational to MAGA politics. Whether it’s Trump selling favors to kleptocratic allies abroad, or ICE agents getting handed newly-created government jobs by the thousands to arrest nonviolent day laborers on real worksites, or Trump pardoning 1,500 of his insurrectionist followers in exchange for serving as MAGA’s paramilitary street-violence wing, everything is subject to buying and selling. Meanwhile, explains Don Moynihan, Trump is simultaneously gutting internal executive branch oversight. For MAGA, all this is a positive.
Enter Trump’s reinvention of the presidency as a Bribe Delivery System. His bad-faith threats toward law firms and universities have invited them to hand over huge sums toward causes Trump likes. His frivolous lawsuits against media companies give their corporate overlords a way to effectively bribe him—with payments to his “presidential library”—to ensure government approval for other business. And any officials who might be legally vulnerable after carrying out Trump’s orders have put themselves in a position of subjugation where displeasing him might risk losing his protection later.
It doesn’t matter where this money goes in the end. These are still functionally extortion payments, or tribute payments, being directed in accordance with Trump’s commands—payments that shouldn’t be happening in the first place. But feeding this BDS is now the cost of doing business—or perhaps even surviving at all—in Trump’s America.
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