Even those who’ve come to expect routine corruption from Donald Trump were taken aback when The New York Times reported that the president “is demanding that the Justice Department pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him.”
Shortly after the newspaper’s report reached the public, Trump fielded some questions from journalists at a White House event, who were naturally interested in knowing whether the reporting was correct. Oddly enough, the Republican confirmed the entire story. NBC News reported:
President Donald Trump acknowledged to reporters Monday that he’s seeking up to hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from the federal government for its scuttled investigations and prosecutions of him.
Despite painfully obvious concerns about corruption, the president was quite candid about his perspective, declaring during an unrelated Oval Office gathering that Justice Department officials “owe me a lot of money.”
As part of the same Q&A, while claiming he was “damaged very greatly” by the investigations into his many alleged felonies, Trump added that it would ultimately be up to him to approve a payout to himself.
“I’m the one that makes the decision and that decision would have to go across my desk,” he told reporters, “and it’s awfully strange to make a decision where I’m paying myself.”
A lot of adjectives come to mind when describing such a gambit. “Strange” is not near the top of the list.
As for why, exactly, the president believes federal law enforcement “damaged” him “very greatly,” leaving him in a position in which he expects a massive, taxpayer-financed payoff, he didn’t elaborate on the details of his grievances. He did, however, claim that his unnamed foes “rigged the election.” What does this have to do with the investigations he’s spent years whining about? Trump didn’t say. In context, it seemed he just wanted to throw this nonsensical and discredited conspiracy theory into his remarks. The head-spinning circumstances remain utterly bizarre: As for what, exactly, the president might do with the money if he were to approve a $230 million shakedown for himself, Trump said at the White House event that he’d “do something nice” with the funds, including possibly devoting some or all of the money to his ballroom project. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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