U.S. President Donald J. Trump during an Oct. 16 event in the Oval Office. Trump submitted two claims in 2023 and 2024 seeking compensation for the costs incurred as he defended himself in two investigations.

If President Donald J. Trump succeeds in getting his own administration to approve a $230 million payment to him from the U.S. Treasury, it would likely be the most corrupt act of government in American history.

That may sound like hyperbole (a Trump specialty), but it is not.

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It’s not just the dollar amount — the kind of fortune that lottery dreams are made of — that is so outrageous. It’s the complicity it would require from those around Mr. Trump to violate the public trust by providing him with public funds to which he is in no way entitled.

Mr. Trump submitted two claims in 2023 and 2024 seeking compensation for the costs incurred as he defended himself in two investigations, both led by special counsels that he insists were unfairly brought against him: Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and Jack Smith’s investigation and prosecution of Mr. Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents after his first term ended.

For all Mr. Trump’s bluster that these cases were hoaxes or “election interference” — his term of art for anything that reflects poorly on him — both of these investigations were appropriate. Indeed,

© Times Union