Ethics group demands to know whether Trump benefited financially from 'lawfare' lawsuit

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has filed a civil suit seeking records that could indicate whether President Donald Trump profited personally from his litigation against the federal government over his prosecutions prior to the 2024 presidential election.

Trump faced two federal prosecutions, both brought by special counsel Jack Smith: one for conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, and one for illegally removing thousands of highly classified documents to his Mar-a-Lago country club in Florida. Both prosecutions encountered several procedural hurdles and were ultimately dropped after Trump was re-elected.

Even before that happened, though, Trump filed a massive lawsuit against his prosecutions — and this is the subject of the CREW litigation.

"Before his re-election, President Trump reportedly submitted two FTCA complaints to the DOJ seeking approximately $230 million in damages related to his federal criminal prosecutions," stated the filing. "Now that he has been re-elected, President Trump’s FTCA complaints pose an unprecedented and unavoidable conflict of interest, as his entitlement to a taxpayer-funded windfall will be evaluated by his own administration, staffed by his former personal attorneys."

As a consequence, said the filing, CREW "now seeks declaratory and injunctive relief requiring DOJ to process CREW’s FOIA request, preserve all records potentially responsive to CREW’s requests, and expeditiously disclose the requested records."

All of this comes amid a broader fight to make Smith's findings on Trump public — and as Trump has reportedly privately admitted that he could have been convicted had these cases been followed through to their conclusion.