ISTANBUL

US President Donald Trump is seeking around $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department over investigations into him done during his first term in office and under the Biden administration, sources familiar with the matter confirmed Tuesday.

According to a report by ABC News, the proposed settlement is based on two separate administrative claims filed by Trump’s legal team in 2023 and 2024.

The first concerns the investigation into possible links between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Russian government, links confirmed by multiple US intelligence agencies as well as by a bipartisan congressional report.

The second alleges that Trump was “prosecuted maliciously” by then-special counsel Jack Smith and that his “privacy rights were violated” during the FBI’s 2022 search of his Mar-a-Lago residence for classified documents.

The New York Times reported that any such settlement would require approval from senior department officials, some of whom previously represented Trump or his allies – representing a likely conflict of interest. Among them are Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who defended Trump in the classified documents case and the case over the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, and Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward, who represented Walt Nauta, an aide to Trump.

Asked if either Blanche or Woodward would recuse from overseeing the case, spokesman Chad Gilmartin said department officials “follow the guidance of career ethics officials,” the Times reported.

In July, Attorney General Pam Bondi – who also worked as a Trump defense lawyer — fired the Justice Department’s top ethics adviser.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Trump said he was not directly involved in the ongoing discussions. “All I know is that they would owe me a lot of money, but I’m not looking for money,” he said, adding that any compensation would be donated to charity.

Trump’s previous charity agreed to shut down in 2018, during his first term as president, over allegations that he and others had illegally misused its funds in coordination with his election campaign and for self-dealing, meaning to benefit himself rather than the purported recipients of charitable funds.

Besides the controversial charity, Trump has faced multiple legal challenges during and after his first term in office. These include allegations of interfering in the 2020 election results, mishandling classified documents, and investigations into his tax records.

Most of these cases were dismissed following his victory in the 2024 election, under the department’s policy that bars criminal proceedings against a sitting president.