Don't Worry. Trump will take the $230 million in taxpayer money that his hand-picked lawyers will award him and "give it to charity or something."

As reported yesterday by The New York Times, President Donald J. Trump has demanded that the federal government pay him $230 million to settle two administrative complaints in which he alleges that various legal actions against him by the Justice Department--including the Russia investigation during his first term, the search of his Mar-a-Lago home for the documents he unlawfully retained during the interregnum, and the January 6 investigation and indictment during that same period--were malicious and otherwise damaging.

Neither the NY Times story linked above nor any other source I was able to locate explains how Trump arrived at the $230 million figure. That seems like too much to be legal fees, even if Trump had very expensive representation. By way of comparison, before his disbarment in both New York and DC, Rudy Giuliani reportedly demanded $20,000 per day for himself and his staff to represent Trump during the 2020 post-election whirlwind of litigation. Trump didn't pay that, not because Giuliani did a bad job (although he did do a bad job) but because Trump generally doesn't pay his bills. Even so, we can use that figure to get a ballpark sense of how much Trump would have incurred in legal fees to defend himself against the various cases he claims were witch-hunts.

If Trump were paying a team of lawyers $20,000 per day to represent him seven days per week and 365 days per year, it would take over 31 years to run up $230 million in legal fees. It is thus fair to assume that most of the money Trump is demanding would go to cover other alleged damages--perhaps the pain and suffering Trump endured or the indignity of having his good name sullied by litigation.

The reportage on the $230 million demand since it broke yesterday has focused mostly on the conflict of interest that will arise when senior officials in the Justice Department have to decide whether to approve the settlement. There would be a conflict in any administration in which officials who serve at the pleasure of the president have to make such a determination, but it is particularly acute in this administration, given that the key figures themselves represented Trump in the very litigation that forms the basis for his claims before Trump named them to the Justice Department.

There's more. The NY Times story quotes Trump as saying "I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity." Trump did not specify what charity. His presidential library? A white supremacist organization that has tax-exempt status?

Meanwhile, Trump has no obligation to turn over any portion of a settlement to charity. Moreover, the NY Times reportage is incomplete. Yesterday, when questioned about the Times story, Trump did say "I would give it to charity," but, as reported by ABC News, he also said--in response to that very same line of questioning--"I'd give it to charity or something."

Or something.

Will Trump stop at $230 million? Why would he? Trump had no sound legal basis for his defamation suit against ABC News arising out of George Stephanaopoulos saying Trump had been found liable for rape when in fact he had "only" been found liable for sexual abuse, which the trial judge had said was tantamount to rape "as many people commonly understand the word". Nonetheless, ABC settled for $15 million. ABC presumably didn't settle for a larger sum because its management must ultimately answer to shareholders, and while paying $15 million to prevent a vindictive president and his administration from abusing regulatory authority over the network may have seemed like a Faustian bargain worth making, there is some number that would have been so high as to make settling for it a bad business decision.

By contrast, the Justice Department officials who will approve Trump's settlement demand are not subject to shareholder control. They answer only to Trump.

To be sure, in theory they also answer to Congress, which could repeal or modify its delegation of power to settle cases of this sort. Or it could impeach and remove Trump and the Justice Department officials who will make this corrupt bargain. But that's in theory. In theory, all sorts of things could happen.

Readers might be wondering whether the ability of Trump's Justice Department to pay him $230 million (you know, for charity or something) is affected by Congress's failure to pass a budget and the government shutdown. Wonder no more. It  . . . wait for it . . . wait for it . . . IS NOT!

Air traffic controllers aren't being paid; Trump and Darth Vader Russel Vought are using the shutdown as a pretext to continue slashing the federal workforce; but because the statutory authorization to pay settlements is a so-called permanent appropriation, it does not need to be renewed as part of the annual budget, and so, shutdown notwithstanding, Trump can receive his $230 million--and whatever else he demands next--pronto.

What a country!