MAGA's $300 million heist

Donald Trump supports immunity for cops and prosecutors. Unless they try to hold him and his allies accountable. Then we all have to pay Donald Trump.

Radley Balko
Nov 21, 2025


Douglas Sacha, Getty Images

In the 15 years between 2009 and 2024, more than 500 people in Texas were exonerated after being imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. Of those, 97 received some form of compensation or settlement from the state. Collectively, those 97 people spent more than 1,200 years in prison. The state paid them just under $156 million, or an average of about $130,000 per person per year behind bars.

Last year, New York City paid out $205 million to settle 956 lawsuits alleging police abuse. That figure includes about $16 million each to two men who served three decades in prison for a murder they didn’t commit. It also includes people who were wrongly raided and beaten by police, and people who were outright framed by law enforcement.

I bring up these figures because, according to multiple reports, Donald Trump is about to order the government to pay him “damages” for the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago mansion and for special prosecutor Jack Smith’s two investigations of him — one for stealing, hoarding, and improperly sharing classified documents, and the other for Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election. He’s going to pay himself $230 million.

So Trump — who didn’t spend a minute behind bars — about to swindle about 50 percent more than the total amount of money paid to the 97 innocent people who were incarcerated for more than 1,200 years in Texas. Or about 12 percent more than the total paid last year to 957 victims of police brutality in New York City.

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