Wait, Trump is demanding how much from the government?

Donald Trump could be in prison if he hadn’t won the 2024 presidential election. And he might not have won the election if the Supreme Court hadn’t invented an expansive form of immunity to protect him from the consequences of his criminal actions.

And now it’s time for Trump to get paid – with your tax money.

Wait, what?

Yes, Trump is demanding that the Justice Department awarded him $230 million in compensation for being the subject of previous federal investigations, according to the New York Times. He allegedly submitted his claims through an administrative claims process, under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and he apparently did some cursory calculations to arrive at the idea that American taxpayers owe him nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.

Before we get into exactly why Trump wants compensation, let’s talk about why he will most likely receive $230 million from your taxes.

FTCA claims can be approved by the deputy attorney general, who happens to be Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s many former personal attorneys. Blanche is such a fan of Trump that he thinks the left-wing protesters should be continued under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. He is so ethically compromised that he does not appear to have recused himself from a DOJ brief filed on Trump’s behalf in one of his continuing attempts to expunge his 34 felony convictions.

In other words, he’s not a guy who’s going to say no to the president.

The other person eligible to approve (or not approve) the payment is the head of the DOJ Civil Division. In this case, it’s Stanley Woodward Jr., who represented Trump’s co-defendant Walt Nauta in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Again, it’s not like he’s going to defend the taxpayers’ right not to give money to Trump as a reward for his corruption.

And what, according to Trump, justifies paying him $230 million? You won’t be surprised to learn that these are the same grievances he always has.

Trump submitted his first claim in 2023, saying he was owed money because his rights were allegedly violated during the government’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Of course, it is not clear what compensation a person under investigation would deserve who definitely found that Trump associates obstructed federal proceedings, attempted to influence testimony and that there were “numerous connections between the Russian government and the Trump campaign,” according to the special counsel’s report on the matter.

Trump’s second claim accuses then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, then-FBI Director Christopher Wray, and then-special counsel Jack Smith of “harassment” in an effort to swing the 2024 election. According to his FTCA filing, this was unfair that Trump had to “spend tens of millions of dollars to defend his record and his reputation.”

Come on. Asset used donor money to pay his legal fees.

In the second request, he also seeks compensation for the FBI allegedly violating his privacy during a search at his Mar-a-Lago. domain.

It’s lopsided, even by Trump’s standards. The FBI had duly executed the arrest warrants and undertaken a search only after the National Archives attempted to more than a year to recover stolen documents.

The only way to consider this a violation of Trump’s privacy is to assert that no one will ever be able to carry out any law enforcement action against Trump.

And when you think about it, that’s kind of what the decision on immunity says. Trump should make sure to send a thank you note to Supreme Court Justice John Roberts for that.

Trump has been quite open about his efforts, explaining At an Oval Office meeting last week, “I have a lawsuit that’s going very well, and when I became president, I said, I’m going to sort of sue myself. I don’t know, how to settle the lawsuit, I’ll say, give me strong, very powerful. “

He has no known prosecution in this regard. So far, he only has FTCA claims, which often precede a lawsuit against the federal government if it refuses to settle the claim. But why would Trump need to sue? His DOJ toads can just approve the administrative claim.

This should be a five-alarm fire that in the middle of After the Republican government shutdown, Trump is demanding that taxpayers shell out hundreds of millions of dollars to quench his dual, relentless thirst for fraud and airing his grievances. But these days? This is entirely normal for a president who views the federal government as his personal piggy bank.