'Blatant corruption': Trump slammed for new $230 million demand

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a Navy 250 Celebration in Norfolk, Virginia, U.S. October 5, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

President Donald Trump is under fire after a New York Times bombshell revealed he wants $230 million from the Justice Department over two investigations targeting him during his campaign.

The Times explained that there is “no parallel in American history, as Mr. Trump, a presidential candidate, was pursued by federal law enforcement and eventually won the election, taking over the very government that must now review his claims.” The paper of record also called it “the starkest example yet of potential ethical conflicts created by installing the president’s former lawyers atop the Justice Department.”

Critics are blasting the president.

“It’s hard to think of an action more purely corrupt than a …. president ordering the executive branch to pay him hundreds of millions of dollars,” wrote David French, a New York Times opinion columnist. “I cannot wait to read the MAGA defenses of this (and there will be many). They’ll display Soviet levels of sycophancy.”

Attorney Andrew Weinstein, a former Obama and Biden appointee, noted that “$230 million could feed every homeless veteran in America for more than 3 years.”

Jesse Lee, a former Obama and Biden official, remarked, “What a g– crook.”

Marlow Stern, who teaches at the Columbia Journalism School and is a former Rolling Stone senior editor, asked, “now he’s extorting… the u.s. justice department?”

Mother Jones reporter Dan Friedman quoted the Trump White House Press Secretary: “’I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,’ Karoline Leavitt said in May. ‘He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service.'”

Political historian Brian Rosenwald commented, “Like come the f– on, this is the most blatant corruption in American history. He’s just stealing from us the taxpayers.”

Derek Martin, founder and president of Pathfinder Research, wrote: “Trump is demanding taxpayers write him a check for $230 million while Republicans tell us they can’t afford to help ordinary Americans pay for health insurance. Cartoonishly evil.”

Jeff Hauser, who writes the Revolving Door Project on Substack, observed: “The dude is desecrating the White House and extorting the Treasury during a shutdown [after] several million Americans protested him. It’s kind of now or never for an opposition party to be provocative in attacking corruption. Trump is too busy enriching himself to govern.”

Media Matters’ Matthew Gertz wrote: “The president of the United States is attempting a smash-and-grab on the U.S. Treasury, and the people with the ability to say no are his former personal lawyers, this is insane.”

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