Ben Shapiro flags ‘conflicts of interest’ in Trump’s $230M DOJ payout push

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Conservative commentator and The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro criticized President Donald Trump’s effort to receive a $230 million payment from the Department of Justice (DOJ), calling it “rife with conflicts of interest” on Saturday, October 25.

The payout is intended as compensation for the department's various probes into Trump. 

Ben Shapiro calls Trump's DOJ move a 'bad strategy'

“I think that it’s rife with conflicts of interest,” Ben Shapiro told NewsNation’s Batya Ungar-Sargon. “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. That is just a bad strategy,” he added. 

“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,” Shapiro pointed out.

Trump calls past DOJ probes 'politically motivated'

According to Donald Trump, the past DOJ investigations into his conduct were “politically motivated” and damaged his reputation. 

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as the president's personal attorney, will be one of the officials responsible for approving the settlement, which Trump has stated that he intends to donate to charity. 

Republicans and Democrats condemn Trump's DOJ move

Republicans and Democrats have raised similar concerns about the effort.

“At the very least, it’s horrible timing, given that we’re in a shutdown,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told reporters earlier this week. “I got a lot of optics concerns, and I just don’t know if there’s precedent for it. There doesn’t seem to be,” he added.

Tillis also urged DOJ officials to “follow the rules” when it comes to approving any funds to be handed over to Trump. “If there’s precedent, that’s the beginning of the discussion,” he later said. “If there isn’t precedent for this sort of thing, I don’t think this is the time to establish it.” 

Senator Susan Collins (R-NE) also said Trump's effort sounds “very irregular.”

House Democrats said they plan to investigate Trump’s push to receive damages and described it as “a blatantly illegal and unconstitutional effort to steal $230 million from the American people.”

Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Robert Garcia (D-CA), the top Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees, wrote a letter to the president highlighting the bad timing of his push for a $230 million settlement.

“You waited until you became President and installed your handpicked loyalists at DOJ, knowing that you could instruct them to co-sign your demand notes in secret behind closed doors, and then you could present the notes to the US Treasury for cold hard cash courtesy of the American taxpayer,” the lawmakers wrote.

“That isn’t justice, it is theft,” they added.