President Donald Trump is seeking about $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for what he calls politically motivated federal investigations that targeted him during and after the Biden administration, The New York Times reported Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
According to The New York Times, senior department officials who once defended Trump or his allies could now find themselves in the unusual position of deciding whether to approve a payout to their boss. The newspaper said the situation “has no parallel in American history,” underscoring how Trump’s return to the presidency has upended traditional boundaries between executive power and the justice system.
Trump’s claim reportedly centers on the costs, reputational damage, and legal expenses he incurred as a result of years of federal inquiries, including multiple special counsel investigations launched while Joe Biden was president. The Times said any settlement would likely require sign-off from the department’s top leadership, some of whom previously represented Trump in private practice before joining his administration.
During the Biden administration, Trump was the subject of several high-profile federal prosecutions. The most prominent was Special Counsel Jack Smith’s pair of cases — one in Washington, D.C., accusing Trump of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election, and another in Florida involving alleged mishandling of classified documents after he left the White House. Both cases were initiated by the Justice Department in 2023 and were still working their way through pretrial proceedings when Trump reclaimed the presidency in January 2025.
In addition, federal prosecutors in New York and Georgia-related teams had examined aspects of Trump’s business practices and election-interference efforts, while the Manhattan district attorney — operating separately from federal authorities — brought the so-called “hush money” case over payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Trump denied wrongdoing in all instances, calling the prosecutions “election interference.”
According to The New York Times, Trump’s demand for restitution frames those actions as government abuses that inflicted measurable financial harm. Legal scholars quoted by the paper said the claim would face enormous hurdles, given the wide immunity federal investigators enjoy for actions taken in their official capacity.
The Times also reported that the matter highlights “the starkest example yet” of potential conflicts inside the Justice Department, since several of Trump’s current appointees previously served as his personal attorneys or legal defenders. Their roles now raise questions about how the department can impartially adjudicate a claim filed by the president himself.
Critics of the president argue that any payout would effectively amount to a government-funded reward for dismantling oversight of his own conduct. Trump’s supporters, by contrast, insist that the investigations were partisan vendettas that cost taxpayers millions and unjustly tarnished his name.
As The New York Times emphasized, there is no precedent for a sitting president demanding damages from the federal government he leads, making the outcome both uncertain and politically explosive. Whether the Justice Department grants or denies the claim, the decision will test the boundaries of executive power and the independence of American law enforcement in an era dominated by Trump’s return to the White House.
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