Three congressional Democrats said on Thursday that as much as $21.5 million paid by ABC, Meta, Paramount and X to settle lawsuits brought by President Donald Trump is missing or has been spent without explanation and requested a full accounting from the foundation building his presidential library.

In a letter to the treasurer of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., cited discrepancies between Trump’s newly released financial disclosures and the foundation’s own filings with Florida charity regulators. The letter asks the treasurer to explain the discrepancies, which the lawmakers discovered after Trump released his annual financial disclosure forms earlier this month. Democratic lawmakers opened an investigation into the settlement funds earlier in March.

Trump’s disclosure form, filed in late June with the Office of Government Ethics, indicates that Meta, ABC and Paramount paid a combined $56.5 million in settlements, with net proceeds going to the foundation. X paid an additional $8 million, but the disclosure does not say where that money went. The four settlements total $64.5 million.

The Trump Library foundation, however, listed $50 million in revenue in a financial reporting form submitted to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services in October 2025 — a figure described as a proposed budget of expected fundraising. 

The lawmakers said the difference leaves at least $6.5 million, and as much as $14.5 million with the X settlement included, unaccounted for based on public records.

All four companies confirmed to lawmakers that they paid — ABC as early as December 2024, days after its settlement. ABC’s payment sat in an escrow account set up by Trump’s lawyers until at least March 2026, when, the network told lawmakers, the IRS recognized the foundation’s tax-exempt status and Trump’s attorneys asked for the money’s release.

The letter also questioned nearly $7 million in expenditures listed in the foundation’s Florida filing: $400,000 in compensation to officers, $490,000 in legal fees, $130,000 for conferences and meetings, $15,000 in travel and $50,000 for insurance. 

The filing does not explain the expenses beyond those categories, the lawmakers said, nor does it disclose who was paid with those funds.

Roughly $6 million is listed in expenses under “other,” with no itemization. The filing gives two different totals for that category: $6.18 million in one place and $5.795 million in another.

The lawmakers’ letter also noted the foundation’s registration application states that none of its listed personnel, including Eric Trump, the president’s son, are compensated, and asked the treasurer to identify who received the $400,000.

The White House and the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc. did not immediately respond to MS NOW’s requests for comment.

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Last September, the original recipient of the settlement payments, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund Inc., was administratively dissolved by Florida’s Department of State after it failed to file a mandatory annual report.

In May 2025, a second entity, the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc., was incorporated in Florida with nearly an identical mission, but whether it received the settlement money has not been publicly documented. (In an April letter to Trump, the lawmakers directly questioned why two entities with the same purpose had been created, and why the foundation was “preferred instead of the fund.”)

The lawmakers wrote to executives at the four companies in March to ask what happened to their money after the original fund’s dissolution. According to the letter, the companies indicated they had no information they were willing to share publicly about where most of the settlement money had gone.

The new letter poses eight sets of questions, with a response requested by July 29, 2026, and presses the foundation to account for gaps between the publicly reported settlement amounts and the figures in Trump’s financial disclosures.

ABC’s settlement, reported in news stories at $15 million, appears as $16 million; Meta’s, reported at $22 million, appears as $24.5 million. The lawmakers cited reports that put Paramount’s at $20 million against $16 million in the disclosure, and X’s at $10 million against $8 million. The letter asks the foundation to confirm each figure and to explain the discrepancies. 

It also asks whether Trump, any member of his family or any affiliated entity has received payments from the foundation.

The lawmakers introduced legislation last July, the Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act, that would limit donations to presidential libraries. They said the new disclosures showed the need for the bill.

“Companies like Paramount and Meta and foreign governments like Qatar may be paying off Donald Trump in plain sight — and right now, there are no rules to stop them,” Warren said when the bill was introduced.

Lily Becker

Lily Becker is a producer on “The Weeknight” for MS NOW.

David Rohde

David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.