Lawmakers Say Trump’s Filings Leave Up to $56.5 Million in Settlement Funds Unaccounted For

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., said Thursday that President Donald Trump’s own financial disclosure and public filings for his presidential library nonprofit leave unanswered questions about tens of millions of dollars tied to settlements with Meta, ABC and Paramount.

The lawmakers pointed to Trump’s 2025 public financial disclosure, an Office of Government Ethics filing received in late June, and records for The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc. In the disclosure, Trump listed a $24.5 million Meta settlement and a $16 million CBS/Paramount settlement, with the filing stating that the “net proceeds” from both were paid to the library foundation. The same filing also includes the ABC case involving George Stephanopoulos and says net proceeds were paid to the foundation. Contemporaneous reporting on that December 2024 settlement said ABC’s parent company, Disney, agreed to pay $15 million to a “presidential foundation and museum” and $1 million in legal fees to Trump’s counsel.

That is why Warren and the other Democrats described the total as “up to” $56.5 million, rather than a fixed amount. Public figures do not fully match across sources. Meta’s settlement was widely reported in January 2025 as $25 million, with about $22 million described in reporting as going to a library fund, while Trump’s later ethics filing lists $24.5 million. ABC was reported as $15 million for the library-related payment, plus $1 million in legal fees, and Paramount was reported as $16 million.

The lawmakers said nonprofit disclosures for The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc. showed $50 million in revenue as of Oct. 10, 2025, and nearly $7 million in expenditures, including roughly $6 million listed as “other.” They said that comparison leaves a potential gap of up to $14.5 million, depending on how the settlement totals are counted and whether all of the funds reached the foundation. In their press release, they said, “This money appears to have been spent with no explanation provided as to how, or by who, or how it may be related to the library.”

Publicly available documents, however, do not fully reconcile the path of every dollar. The records cited by the lawmakers do not by themselves establish that money was stolen, diverted or misused. Instead, the lawmakers’ argument is that Trump’s ethics disclosure and the nonprofit filings do not fully explain where all of the settlement money ended up.

Part of the confusion stems from the nonprofit structure. A Florida entity called Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, Inc. was incorporated on Dec. 20, 2024. That entity was administratively dissolved on Sept. 26, 2025, for failing to file an annual report, and articles of dissolution were filed Dec. 29, 2025. A separate nonprofit, Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc., was incorporated on May 19, 2025. The existence of two entities — one later dissolved and one separate foundation named in Trump’s ethics filing — makes the public paper trail harder to follow.

The lawmakers also released March 2026 correspondence with the companies. They said Meta “confirmed that it paid $22 million ‘to support a presidential library for President Trump . . . for the purpose of settling the pending claims’ but refused to provide further ‘confidential’ details.” ABC and Paramount, according to the lawmakers, said they made the payments required by their settlements but did not explain what happened to the funds after the original library fund was dissolved.

The scrutiny carries broader conflict-of-interest and transparency implications because the payments came from major corporations and were directed to a future presidential library connected to a sitting president. But the immediate issue raised Thursday was narrower: Trump’s own disclosure and public nonprofit records do not fully account for settlement money that lawmakers say could total up to $56.5 million.