Ben Shapiro Hits Trump for Seeking $230 Million From DOJ: ‘Rife With Conflicts Of Interest’

Leah Hogsten/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP, Pool

Conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro took issue with President Donald Trump’s push to receive millions of dollars in damages from the Department of Justice on Friday, warning that the move could lead to “a massive number of lawsuits or even an impeachment in the House.”

The president is seeking a payout of $230 million as compensation for investigations the DOJ conducted into his affairs. According to the complaints submitted by Trump under the federal government’s administrative claim process, these include “Russian election tampering and possible connections to the 2016 Trump campaign,” the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents, the criminal charges against him related to the mishandling of that classified material, and the investigations launched by former Attorney General Merrick Garland, former FBI Director Christopher Wray, and former Special Counsel Jack Smith.

In an interview with NewsNation’s Batya Ungar-Sargon, Shapiro said the request was “rife with conflicts of interest.”

“I cannot see a world in which that does not end with either a massive number of lawsuits or even an impeachment in the House,” he said. “That is just a bad strategy.”

A prominent supporter of the president, Shapiro maintained that although he’s “incredibly sympathetic” to Trump and his family for being “targeted by law enforcement,” the move would most likely face legal challenges.

“To pretend that it’s not a conflict of interest, for the president to ask the DOJ that he appointed to maybe sign him a check for $230 million, even if it’s going to go to charity, that obviously raises significant conflicts of interest that I think would be impossible to get around in sort of any legal context,” he said.

Shapiro is one of many prominent right-wing figures to criticize the president over the request that was first reported by The New York Times on Tuesday.

CNN pundit and MAGA ally Scott Jennings advised Trump on Tuesday to “table” the request.

“If it were me and I were advising him, I would just say you could table it and put it off until you leave office,” he said.

Senator Thom Tillis (R-SC) also hit the president over the move on Wednesday, telling CNN chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju that the request was “really bad timing.”

“It’s terrible optics, particularly right now,” he said. “We’re talking about a quarter of a billion dollars transferring, maybe to the President when we’re in a shutdown posture.”

In response to a question about the damages on Tuesday, the president said the funds will likely go to charity if awarded.

“[I]f I get money from our country, I’ll do something nice with it, like give it to charity or give it to the White House, where we restore the White House,” he said.

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