Washington, D.C. - Today, U.S Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) is introducing new legislation to recover taxpayer dollars paid to presidents through settlements or judgments resulting from undue influence or coercion from the White House. Schiff's introduction of the Corruption Clawback Act comes as President Trump has sued the federal government, seeking more than $10 billion and demanding his own Justice Department repay him more than $230 million for past legal matters - a move that has caused ethics watchdogs to sound the alarm.

"Donald Trump is demanding billions in personal payoffs from the federal agencies he controls, taking his theft of tax-payer dollars to a whole new level. And with his former defense attorneys running the Department of Justice, he just may get away with it," said Senator Schiff. "My Corruption Clawback Act would recover federal funds paid to Donald Trump, or any future president, that follows this corrupt playbook, and stop this once unimaginable abuse of presidential power."

Specifically, Schiff's bill would establish a new legal mechanism for the government to recover federal funds corruptly paid to a president by mandating that the attorney general initiate civil actions to reclaim covered payments unduly paid to a sitting president, including administrative awards under the Federal Tort Claims Act or Treasury-funded settlements.

Under this legislation, courts would be directed to evaluate whether the officials who authorized the payout were presidential appointees or former personal counsel, whether the award exceeds typical private-citizen benchmarks, and whether standard legal defenses were bypassed during negotiations. Once recovered, federal funds would go to the Department of Justice's Public Integrity Section. Lastly, the bill mandates that the Comptroller General, who heads the Government Accountability Office (GAO), submit a formal report to Congress within 180 days of any covered payment exceeding $1 million addressing the same conflict-of-interest and procedural factors used by the courts, providing a secondary layer of accountability for high-value payouts.

In addition to Senator Schiff, Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawai'i) are co-sponsoring this legislation.

This legislation is endorsed by Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW), Common Cause, Democracy Defenders Action, People for the American Way (PFAW), and Project on Government Oversight (POGO).

The full text of the bill is available here.

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