Republicans in Congress, who usually have an easy time defending President Donald Trump’s worst whims, are struggling to justify his illegal quest to pocket $230 million in taxpayer dollars as restitution for the legitimate investigations and indictments he faced over his corrupt actions.
GOP senators either claimed they didn’t see the news of Trump’s attempted shakedown, or gave muted criticism over the fact that Trump’s former defense attorney will likely determine if Trump will get the massive payout.
House Speaker Mike Johnson pulled the trick that reporters often allow Republicans to get away with, saying he didn’t know enough about the demanded payment to comment on it.
“I’m not trying to dodge the question. I haven’t had time to get the details. Okay. It’s still on my list of things to-do list. Yesterday was almost literally a 21-hour workday,” Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju, even though it should be a pretty easy yes-or-no question.
Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas—who can’t risk angering Trump as he fights a stiff primary challenge—also pulled the ignorance card.
“I want to find out more about it,” Cornyn said on Capitol Hill. “Because I’m—I don’t know what these details are.”
Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, also claimed not to know much about Trump’s latest grift, which has been widely reported on. “I don’t know a thing about it so I’m not going to comment, but it sounds very irregular to me,” she said—a Collins-ism for the ages.
Shockingly, some Republicans who most fervently defend Dear Leader actually said the whole potential payoff stinks—albeit in their own mealymouthed way.
“He has a right to make a claim if he was wronged,” infamous bootlicking Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, told The Hill, but he added that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche—who is one of two people who can sign off on the payout—should recuse himself.
“He shouldn’t decide, because he’s his former lawyer,” Graham told the Hill.
Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, a staunch ally of Trump, told The Hill that the president may be owed money for his troubles, but that the payment gives Democrats “a good talking point” in the 2026 midterm elections.
Cramer is right, of course, that Trump potentially taking $230 million in taxpayer money gives Democrats quite a line of attack at a time when all Americans want is an affordable cost of living.
Then there were the Republicans who admitted this is bad and said that Trump shouldn’t do it.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, shown in July.
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina—who has more freely criticized Trump since he announced he won’t seek reelection and thus no longer fears Trump’s ire—said the Trump’s potential payoff is “horrible timing.”
“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,” Tillis told the Hill of the payment.
And Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of Wyoming, said the optics of the potential payoff are so bad that she thinks Trump’s Justice Department wouldn’t sign off on it.
“There are probably a lot of people who feel like they’ve been wrongfully prosecuted by the federal government. I’m not sure that that’s even possible,” she told The Hill of the huge payment Trump is seeking. “I would highly doubt that.”
At best, that’s wishful thinking. The DOJ has become Trump’s personal revenge team, criminally indicting his enemies on frivolous charges merely because he demanded it.
It’s no wonder that most Americans view Trump as a dictator. The coming $230 million tax dollar heist will only further cement that view.
