VICTIM IN CHIEF: President Trump astoundingly is suing the Justice Department to compensate him $230 million for the federal investigations into his activities.

  One complaint demands recompense for the investigation into possible Russian influencing in favor of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The second involves the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago club to retrieve secret documents he held after leaving office. Trump claims it was a violation of his privacy.

  He also accuses the Justice Department of malicious prosecution even though he had the documents and was indicted after refusing to give them back to the government.

  The crowning irony is that it is up to Justice Department officials, many of whom were appointed and/or were Trump defense lawyers, to pay the money. The ultimate decision is up to Deputy Attorney Gen. Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer in his New York felony conviction.

  Trump said yesterday, “I was damaged very greatly and any money I would get, I would give to charity.”

THE EPSTEIN FILES: As House Speaker Mike Johnson holds up swearing in a new Democratic member who would have the deciding vote on releasing files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a memoir by Epstein’s best-known victim was posthumously published yesterday, revealing sickening details of her life with the predator and his sidekick, Ghislaine Maxwell.

  Virginia Giuffre, who committed suicide earlier this year, wrote in “Nobody’s Girl” that; “In my years with them, they lent me out to scores of wealthy, powerful people. I was habitually used and humiliated—and in some instances, choked, beaten, and bloodied. I believed that I might die a sex slave.”

  She described sex with the since-disgraced Britain’s Prince Andrew, saying he was “particularly attentive to my feet, caressing my toes and licking my arches.”

  Giuffre, and other Epstein victims, have been careful about naming the powerful men with whom they were required to have sex. Those names might be contained in the Justice Department’s Epstein files. Adelita Grijalva, a Democrat elected to the House a month ago from Arizona, would have the deciding vote on a petition that would force release of the files. Speaker Johnson has repeatedly made excuses for not swearing Grijalva into office. Yesterday the Arizona attorney general filed suit to force Johnson to act.

THE WAR ROOM: After announcing that President Trump would fly to Europe for a meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the White House now says that won’t happen. The Russians said they had no plans of reaching a peace deal over the Ukraine war.

  “I don’t want to have a wasted meeting,” Trump said yesterday.

  Trump is swinging like a tall tree in high wind, first on the side of Russia, then Ukraine, and back. He is reported to have had a tense meeting last week with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump insisted that Ukraine would have to give up territory to make peace with Russia. The President also backed off on any plan to give Ukraine long range missiles that would make Russia feel the heat of war.

  “Russia’s stalling tactics have shown time and time again that Ukraine is the only party serious about peace,” said a statement from Ukraine’s European allies. “We can all see that Putin continues to choose violence and destruction.”

THE REGIME: The historic East Wing of the White House has been mostly torn down to clear the way for President Trump’s 90,000 square foot ballroom, which would be about 60 percent bigger than the White House itself.

  There is evidently no law or authority … or certainly a Congress … that prevents Trump from doing whatever he wants to the home of presidents. He has festooned the interior with gold decorations and gold tchotchkes. 

  Various architectural groups urged careful consideration of plans only to be ignored. Trump, after all, is the man who took a wrecking ball to the historic Art Deco friezes on New York’s Bonwit Teller building to erect Trump Tower. White House officials dismissed criticism of the ballroom project as “manufactured outrage,” 

  Trump promised that his ballroom will not touch the White House residence and “pays total respect to the existing building” … despite making it look like an annex.

— The nomination of Paul Ingrassia, a right wing lawyer and podcaster who had been named by President Trump to lead the Office of Special Counsel, collapsed yesterday under opposition from Republican senators.

  Politico discovered that Ingrassia had taken part in a racist and antisemitic group chat in which he said he has “a Nazi streak” and that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday should be “tossed into the seventh circle of hell.”

  Ingrassia continues to serve as the White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security.

— Fifty federal agents raided New York’s Canal Street  yesterday, sweeping up street vendors. In Los Angeles, officers shot and wounded a TikTok streamer who has documented ICE activities. They also wounded  a US Marshall.

— The Trump administration is focusing its refugee resettlement program on bringing thousands of White South Africans into the country, according to reporting by The Washington Post.

  The administration has limited the refugee program to 7,500 people and plans to give slots to 7,000 English speaking whites who President Trump claims have been tyrannized by South Africa’s Black majority. 

  The remainder of people admitted may be chosen because of their ability to speak English or their views on “free speech,” according to reporting by the Post.

THE SPIN RACK: Former President Joe Biden has finished a course of radiation for prostate cancer. — Jewels stolen from the Louvre Sunday are estimated to be worth $102 million.

BELOW THE FOLD: Keepers at the Sequoia Park Zoo in Eureka, California went into emergency mode when a wild bear broke into the compound … to play with the other bears inside the fence. One of the zoo supervisors said in a statement that the bear caused no harm and “Overall, he was a very polite visitor.” 

-30-