How the Supreme Court made Trump's $230 million 'shakedown' possible

On Tuesday, October 21, the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump "is demanding that" the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) "pay him about $230 million in compensation for the federal investigations into him."

Discussing the matter in the White House Oval Office that day, Trump told reporters, "It's awfully strange to make a decision where I'm paying myself…. But I was damaged very greatly, and any money I would get I would give to charity."

In 2024, Trump was the first presidential candidate in U.S. history to receive his party's nomination despite facing four criminal indictments — two prosecuted by then-special counsel Jack Smith for DOJ, one prosecuted by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., and one prosecuted by Fulton County, Georgia DA Fani Willis. Bragg's hush money/falsified business records case was the only one that went to trial, and Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts. But all of the cases were doomed when Trump narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris by roughly 1.5 percent."

Previous DOJ investigations of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election did not result in any indictments of Trump, although he is arguing that they hurt him nonetheless.

In an article published on October 22, Mother Jones' Pema Levy argues that the U.S. Supreme Court helped pave the way for Trump's $230 million demand.

"President Donald Trump is demanding that the Justice Department transfer $230 million in taxpayer dollars into his own personal bank account," Levy writes. "He can do this, because thanks to the Supreme Court's recent decisions, the executive branch could accurately be described by King Louis XIV — L'état, c'est Trump. At first you might think, 'Can he do that? Can he just shakedown the DOJ for roughly a quarter of a billion dollars?' And then you think about the Supreme Court opinions under Chief Justice John Roberts, in which the Court has shifted the fundamental structure of American government such that federal agencies, including the Justice Department, are mere extensions of the president's will."

In the High Court's 6-3 ruling in Trump v. the United States, six GOP-appointed justices ruled that U.S. presidents enjoy absolutely immunity from prosecution for "official acts" committed in the White House but not for "unofficial acts." Barack Obama-appointed Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her scathing dissent, warned that SCOTUS was giving way too much power to the federal government's executive branch — and that a future president could order Navy SEALs to assassinate of a political rival, claim it was an "official" act, and get away with murder. In his analysis of the ruling for The Nation, progressive legal expert Elie Mystal said that the ruling was dangerous because it gave presidents "absolute immunity" rather than merely "qualified immunity."

"The colossal cash transfer he is demanding is being described ascompensation for investigations the Department (of Justice) launched into Russia's interventions in the 2016 election and Trump's absconding with classified documents after his first term," Levy explains. "Now that he's back in the White House, Trump plans to make the government pay for its appropriate use of its ability to investigate and prosecute to safeguard our democracy. And he grasps the fact that he has the absolute power to do that…. Roberts can claim that he's expanding democratic accountability. But at this point, we can all see the mess he's created. A man who takes from the voters to line his pockets is not feeling all that accountable to anyone."

Read Pema Levy's full article for Mother Jones at this link.