Thousands of such claims are filed each year.
Trump’s claims, however, are the only ones filed by the person who appoints the Justice Department’s leaders.
This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice shows documents seized during the FBI’s 2022 search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.Credit: AP
To date, Trump has not taken any public step to enforce his claim. Under the law, if the government does not pay a claim within six months, the claimant has the right to sue in court. Trump hasn’t done so.
This week, he didn’t say he would. But he didn’t rule it out, either.
“It could be. I don’t know what the numbers are. I don’t even talk to them about it. All I know is that they would owe me a lot of money, but I’m not looking for money,” he said.
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The more likely scenario for Trump would be to reach a settlement with a Justice Department he has publicly said works for him. Trump did not comment on whether formal settlement negotiations were under way. Any such discussions would pose serious ethical challenges because some of the defence lawyers who represented Trump in the investigations at the centre of his claims are now top Justice Department officials, who would probably need to sign off on any agreement.
Todd Blanche, the deputy attorney-general, served as Trump’s top personal defence lawyer in the classified document case. Stanley Woodward, who heads the civil division, served as the top lawyer for Trump’s co-defendant in that case.
Trump acknowledged the thorniness of any potential settlement when he obliquely raised the subject at a White House event last week with Attorney-General Pam Bondi, Blanche and FBI director Kash Patel. Without specifying what he was referring to, he talked about a claim he had in which he said he would be in effect suing himself.
“I don’t know, how do you settle the lawsuit? I’ll say ‘give me X dollars’, and I don’t know what to do with the lawsuit,” Trump said then. “It sort of looks bad, I’m suing myself, right? So I don’t know. But that was a lawsuit that was very strong, very powerful.”
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The New York Times reported this week that Trump’s remarks were a reference to his claims against the government over the two investigations, and that the total claim was for $US230 million. The existence of Trump’s $US100 million claim over the Mar-a-Lago search had been publicly reported.
Under the Tort Claims Act, people who want to sue the federal government for damages must first lodge an administrative complaint with the federal government. Trump, who was alleging misdoings by the FBI, filed his claim at the Justice Department.
The claims process is typically not made public. But Trump indicated in his public statements that the Justice Department had not settled the claims with him.
During the Biden administration, the Justice Department under then-attorney-general Merrick Garland did not settle or close the two claims, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for retaliation. It is unclear why the department did not respond to or close the 2023 claim related to the Russia investigation, but federal regulations do not require the government to respond to claims, and it is not unusual for officials to sit on them for a long time.
The claim related to the Mar-a-Lago search would have been harder for the Justice Department to settle since the federal case against Trump was dismissed only in the final days of the Biden administration. The Justice Department would not typically resolve claims related to ongoing cases.
A settlement of an administrative claim for upwards of $US100 million would be far larger than is typical. According to the Justice Department manual, settlement agreements must be signed off on by either the deputy attorney-general or associate attorney-general.
The Justice Department would not comment on the status of any negotiations, but said when asked about potential recusals of Blanche and Woodward that “all officials at the Department of Justice follow the guidance of career ethics officials”.
The Washington Post
