Who gets to decide when the President sues his own government?

0:00Over the course of his adult life, President Donald Trump and his companies have been involved in thousands of lawsuits. You might even call him litigious. I think we have a case that's going to be not only very interesting, but a case that we're going to win. The way that they've established themselves, the practices that they've used are going to be brought out very strongly in the case. That's Trump speaking to ABC's Good Morning America back in 1984. At the time, he owned the New Jersey Generals, a team in the USFL, the U.S. Football League. Trump led fellow owners in filing an antitrust suit against the rival National Football League.

0:35That pattern of behavior turning to the courts has been playing out for at least five decades. Back in 1973, Trump countersued the U.S. Department of Justice for defamation and$100 million. That came after Trump, his father, and their company were accused of racial discrimination under the Fair Housing Act. Trump's suit was dismissed, and the Justice Department settled with Trump, his father, and his company a couple of years later. The suits and the countersuits continued steadily all the way from when the real estate magnate became a candidate, the president, the former president, and once again, president.

1:09Donald Trump spends a lot of time with lawyers. She said that I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nut job. That's from a deposition President Trump gave back in 2022. The writer E. Gene Carroll successfully sued Trump for defamation and sexual assault. Trump later filed a countersuit saying Carroll defamed him. The president has also sued CNN, ABC, CBS, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and most recently the BBC. Here's President Trump in November. We'll sue them. We'll sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars.

1:52accusing the British broadcasting giant of defamation for the way it edited Trump's January 6th speech. The network apologized but said it will not be paying damages. Now, President Trump is suing his own administration. Here he is giving a speech in North Carolina. You know, I brought a lawsuit and I'm winning the lawsuit. There's only one problem. I'm the one that has to settle it. In other words, I am suing and I'm the one that's supposed to settle it. So maybe I'll give myself$1 billion and give it all to charity. Does that make sense? You know, I'll give it to charity. Do you have any nice charities?

2:28Consider this. President Donald Trump has always turned to the courts. Now he is turning on his own treasury and justice departments. So what does it mean to be on both sides of these legal claims? Coming up, how the president is trying to make the case that his own government owes him billions.

2:48From NPR, I'm Scott Detrow. This week on Up First from NPR News, funding ran out for the Department of Homeland Security and Congress went home. DHS does a few important things, like secure the airports or the coasts or the president. Now their funding is uncertain. And what does this say about the way Congress works or doesn't? Follow us for the latest each morning on Up First on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

3:23It's Consider This from NPR. Of all the ways President Trump has pushed the bounds of executive power, one stands out to lawyers and watchdogs. Trump wants the government that he leads to pay him billions of dollars. Trump has filed multiple claims arguing that he has been hurt by Justice Department investigations and the leak of his tax returns years ago. NPR's Kerry Johnson and Tamara Keith report. President Trump was in North Carolina, nearing the end of a speech about the economy, when out of nowhere he started talking about the FBI search of his Florida resort in 2022. I had these animals trying to attack me at Mar-a-Lago.

4:03They went into my wife's closet. Agents were on the hunt for classified documents. The FBI seized papers from a bathroom, a ballroom, and an office. Trump viewed it as a violation, an attack, the weaponization of the government against him. So he filed a claim with the Justice Department seeking$230 million in damages. And they do say that, you know, it's never been a case like this. Donald Trump sues the United States of America. Donald Trump becomes president. And now Donald Trump has to settle the suit. Trump was out of office when the claim was first filed. But then he won the 2024 election.

4:45The charges against him were dropped. And now Trump finds himself on both sides of the dispute. But isn't that a strange position to be in? I've got to make a deal. I negotiate with myself. There's a process in place at the Justice Department for people who say they've been harmed by the federal government. In the normal course of business, those claims get evaluated by career lawyers. They rarely involve high-profile criminal investigations like Trump's. Rupa Patacheria worked in that DOJ office for years. Some of them are run-of-the-mill, right? Postal vehicles get into traffic accidents. VA doctors have malpractice claims brought against them.

5:28People slip and fall in federal buildings. Even in the most serious cases, like the ones that involved the attack on 9-11, she says the U.S. government almost never paid out more than $10 million. President Trump wants a lot more than that, 23 times more for the Justice Department investigations against him, probes that ended after he won re-election to the White House. $230 million would be by an order of magnitude greater than any administrative settlement the department has ever agreed to in a federal tort claims act case. Typically, the Justice Department would fight claims in court over the work of its career prosecutors and FBI agents.

6:08And in this case, they would have strong legal defenses. After all, a federal judge approved the search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago property, finding probable cause. And given how much money is at stake in this claim, people at the top of the Justice Department would make the final call. There is a glaring conflict of interest in Trump being on both sides of the claim. That's Ed Whalen. He's a former lawyer for the Justice Department and a political conservative who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. It is completely outrageous that he and those answering to him would be deciding how the government responds to these extravagant claims.

6:49Those answering to him include the attorney general and her top deputy. Both of them used to work as President Trump's personal attorneys. The third in commanded justice represented Trump's valet, an alleged co-conspirator in the Mar-a-Lago case. Again, Ed Whalen. The fear that many have is that the Department of Justice will simply fold and ask Donald Trump, the individual, how much money Donald Trump's administration should funnel to him. In a recent interview with NBC's Tom Yamas, Trump didn't do anything to bat down the suggestion that he would be the final decider. You're going to tell them to pay you, though?

7:28Because you're the boss. Well, what I would do, tell them to pay me, but I'll give 100 percent of the money to charity. But Trump wasn't just upset about those old Justice Department investigations. He had more scores to settle and at the end of January filed another claim against the federal government. A$10 billion lawsuit over the 2019 leak of his tax returns by an IRS contractor. Experts in tax law say that case has some big flaws. For one thing, the statute of limitations seems to have expired. What's more, the leak took place during Trump's first term in office. So the president is suing the government for actions when he was in charge.

8:08Congressional Democrats pressed top administration officials about this in recent weeks, including Treasury Secretary Scott Besant, who was questioned by New Jersey Senator Andy Kim. He even said, I am supposed to work out a settlement with myself. That's what Trump said. Do you think that that is a conflict of interest? That is a Justice Department issue. No, it is suing your department. The Justice Department represents Treasury. I would suggest you contact Justice. Good luck with that. In a separate hearing, the head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Pam Bondi, didn't shine any additional light.

8:43I'm not going to discuss pending litigation. A Justice Department spokesperson told NPR in any circumstance, all officials at the DOJ follow the guidance of career ethics officials. So if DOJ does approve a settlement, where would this money come from? Rupa Bhattacharya explains it's something called the Judgment Fund. Which is a taxpayer-funded pot of money, which means that the American people are on the hook for these claims if liability is assessed against the government. For Trump, filing lawsuits, including those that are frivolous or where he has little chance of success, has long been standard operating procedure.

9:23In these cases, regardless of the merits, he holds all the cards. A White House official tells NPR these suits are unfinished business for Trump. A spokesman for Trump's private legal team said in a statement, quote, President Trump continues to hold those who wrong America and Americans accountable. But what about the American people, taxpayers, who will be stuck holding the bag if Trump wins large settlements? I asked the president that during a recent flight on Air Force One. You're suing the federal government about your taxes. I'm wondering, is it fair to ask the American people to pay for that?

9:59Well, anything I win, I'm going to give 100 percent to charity. But that still takes it from the American people. No, no, because they give money to charity anyway. They give away 40 billion dollars a year to charity, our government. It's not clear where Trump got that number from, and the White House didn't respond to questions seeking clarity. At a time when Americans say their top concern is the cost of living and making ends meet, the idea of the president receiving a massive windfall from the government he leads may not sit well with voters, even if it is donated to charity. Tamara Keith and Carrie Johnson, NPR News.

10:35This episode was produced by Erica Ryan with audio engineering by Damian Herring. It was edited by Anna Yukoninoff, Rebecca Metzler, and Courtney Dornick. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow.