{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases/reed-and-whitehouse-criticize-trumps-brazen-shakedown-demand-for-doj-to-pay-him-230-million-for-past-cases", "Reed & Whitehouse Criticize Trump\u2019s Brazen Shakedown Demand for DOJ to Pay Him $230 Million for Past Cases", "2025-10-23", "2025", "2025-10", "Democrat", "Senate", "RI", "Jack Reed", "R000122", "www.reed.senate.gov", "jackreed", "https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases", "scraper", "WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), a member of the Appropriations Subcommittee that oversees the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), and Sheldon Whitehouse, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, criticized President Donald Trump for pursuing a $230 million payout from DOJ using American taxpayer money. Trump reportedly wants \u2018restitution\u2019 for DOJ\u2019s past investigations into his conduct.\n\nThe New York Times reported that President Trump has submitted complaints through an administrative claims process, about criminal investigations into his actions over the past several years for which he feels entitled to compensation.\n\nSome of Trump\u2019s former personal attorneys, who are now heading up the Department of Justice, are in key positions to decide whether or not to grant their former boss and current employer the taxpayer money he wants. However, President Trump claims that he himself would make the final determination of whether he ultimately takes the massive payout from taxpayers, which may not even be publicly disclosed when it\u2019s made.\n\nSenator Reed stated: \u201cThis is a sickening brand of cash-grab corruption that should have no place in our democracy. President Trump has zero evidence that these investigations were launched improperly and yet he claims he alone is positioned to decide whether he can just take a quarter of a billion dollars from taxpayers and not even inform the public. No president or any elected official should line their pockets with a corrupt DOJ payout like this.\u201d\n\nSenator Whitehouse stated: \u201cThe President has proposed looting $230 million directly from American taxpayers. Presented with this proposed public embezzlement by President Trump, his former defense attorneys who now run the Department of Justice pledged to \u2018follow the guidance of career ethics officials,\u2019 curiously omitting that they\u2019ve fired those same career ethics officials. It\u2019s a cesspool of corruption with no equivalence in American history.\u201d\n\nThe Senators urged President Trump to drop the unethical claims and said that any DOJ officials involved in the cases should recuse themselves from such a blatant conflict of interest.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.reed.senate.gov/news/releases/reed-and-whitehouse-criticize-trumps-brazen-shakedown-demand-for-doj-to-pay-him-230-million-for-past-cases"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9365808218717575, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}