Jeffrey Toobin Pans Trump’s ‘Egregious’ Attempt to Get the Government to Pay Him $230 Million
Former federal prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin said there is no way that President Donald Trump’s reported attempt to receive $230 million in taxpayer money can be resolved “in an ethical way.”
Toobin called the conflict of interest “so obvious and egregious.”
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported that Trump is seeking $230 million from the Department of Justice over its investigations into him. During the Biden administration, under then-Attorney General Merrick Garland, Trump was prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith in two separate cases. Grand juries indicted the then-former president for retaining classified documents after leaving office and for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Trump pleaded not guilty on all counts, which were dropped after he won the 2024 election.
In another claim, Trump is seeking damages over the DOJ’s investigation into possible ties between his 2016 campaign and the Russian government.
When asked about the report hours after publication, the president said, “Well, I guess they probably owe me a lot of money for that.
Appearing on Tuesday’s AC360 on CNN, Toobin said that while it’s “very rare” for claims of malicious prosecution to succeed, the conflicts of interest at play are glaring.
“There is such a thing as filing claims against the government for malicious prosecution. It’s very rare,” he said. “The Times story is a great story, but it doesn’t exactly say how they’re doing it. There’s something called the Federal Tort Claims Act. There’s something called the Hyde Amendment that allows you to sue of really, a bad-faith prosecution.”
“Like the government knew it wasn’t true, but they’re but they’re going after you anyway,” host Anderson Cooper elucidated.
“Exactly. There have been very few successful claims under those laws in these circumstances,” Toobin replied. “But obviously, in all of those claims, the defendant is the Justice Department. Here you have the president suing the Justice Department, which, of course, is run by his appointees, including people who represented him in these cases. So the conflict of interest is just so obvious and egregious. I don’t think there would be any way it could be worked out in an ethical way.”
Watch above via CNN.
