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For the first two years Donald Trump was in office, Democrats regularly attempted to get Deutsche Bank to turn over information on its financial ties to the president. Of particular interest to lawmakers was the question of why, at a time when other banks wouldn’t touch him with a 20,000 foot pole, the German lender was willing to loan the perennial bankruptcy artist billions of dollars in loan commitments and potential bond offerings. In addition, Dems had queries about Deutsche’s relationship with Russia, and whether it overlapped at all with our new president. Unfortunately, those questions went unanswered because 1) the bank wasn’t talking, and 2) Republicans who’d pledged to lay down in traffic to protect Trump were controlling Congress, and refused to help their colleagues use subpoena power to get the information they were seeking. As of January, however, things have changed!
After taking back the House—and relevant committees like Financial Services and Intelligence—Democrats are preparing to launch a major investigation into Deutsche Bank’s habit of loaning Trump massive sums of money and, per Politico, “whether Russia was involved.” Among its hires, the House Financial Services Committee has reportedly recruited veteran investigator Bob Roach, who is said to be “remarkably familiar” with money-laundering matters, in addition to Abigail Grace, a former career official at the National Security Council who left the White House last year, and whose hiring resulted in a shrieking tweet about “witch hunt[s]” from the Oval Office. According to Politico, Democrats believe that Robert Mueller’s investigation has done little to explore the Deutsche Bank angle to Trump’s finances. “There’s a heightened need to look into anything that could compromise the president or the country, particularly if it’s not being investigated elsewhere,” said House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff. “I don’t know that to be the case, but I just haven’t seen any external signs that that’s happening.”
For Schiff, Deutsche Bank is a starting point as his committee investigates possible money laundering by the Trump Organization. [Financial Services Chairwoman] Maxine Waters, who has called for the president’s impeachment, has said her inquiry into the “Trump money trail” would also start with the bank.
Last year, House Intelligence Committee Democrats outlined concerns they had about Deutsche Bank in a status report on the panel’s Russia investigation, which at that time was being run by Republicans. Among their questions: Did Trump’s financial exposure via Deutsche Bank or other loans represent a point of leverage that Russia could exploit? Did the Russian government try to court Trump and launder money through the Trump Organization?
Last week, Bloomberg reported that, following the surprise results of the 2016 election, Deutsche Bank executives were “so concerned” the Trump Organization would default on its $340 million worth of loans while Trump was in office that they considered extending the repayment dates until 2025, after the end of a potential second term. This, they figured, would pre-empt the public-relations disaster of either 1) not collecting the money and being seen as in Trump’s pocket, or 2) risking retaliation by a vengeful president—a possibility an ex-Deutsche source told my colleague William D. Cohan that the bank is “particularly afraid of at the moment, given how much regulatory hot water it has been in over the years for a variety of reasons.” In the end, the bank decided to do nothing and, per Bloomberg, chose instead to simply not do any new business with the Trump Organization during the duration of Trump’s presidency.
But, of course, Democrats want to know about the period in which the bank was more than happy to do business with a guy famous for being bad at business. “All we know is that there was one period of Donald Trump’s before he became president where he was spending cash for his developments all around the world,“ Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, chairman of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over money-laundering issues, told Politico. “Very few people pay cash when they do a big development . . . He was paying cash at a time when he wasn’t supposed to have money. We’re going to have to find out why.”
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