Tag: Deutsche Bank

Banks just handed over documents that may be related to Trump’s financial ties to Russia

The companies complying with subpoenas for the documents include Deutsche Bank, which has financed the Trump Organization.

A number of major Wall Street banks have handed over thousands of documents to congressional committees pertaining to Russian figures who may have had links to President Donald Trump, his family, or the the Trump Organization, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The firms, including Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase, passed along the documents subpoenaed by investigators with both the House Finance Committee and House Intelligence Committee. The banks are complying with subpoenas sent to them in April.

The specific details of the documents remain scarce, as do the identities of the Russian figures or entities specifically mentioned in the material.

View the complete August 8 article by Casey Michael on the ThinkProgress website here.

Trump defends Deutsche Bank in bizarre series of tweets — and sets off alarm bells: ‘I smell trouble’

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump raised eyebrows with a series of tweets defending his banking history.

The president insisted he did not need to borrow money to pursue real estate projects, and also claimed he could easily have obtained loans from any bank — rather than relying on foreign investors and the embattled Deutsche Bank.

“The Fake News Media loves the narrative that I didn’t use many banks because the banks didn’t like me,” Trump tweeted. “No, I didn’t use many banks because I didn’t (don’t) need their money (old fashioned, isn’t it?). If I did, it would have been very easy for me to get.”

View the complete July 11 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Deutsche Bank Faces Criminal Investigation for Potential Money-Laundering Lapses

New York Times logoFederal authorities are investigating whether Deutsche Bank complied with laws meant to stop money laundering and other crimes, the latest government examination of potential misconduct at one of the world’s largest and most troubled banks, according to seven people familiar with the inquiry.

The investigation includes a review of Deutsche Bank’s handling of so-called suspicious activity reports that its employees prepared about possibly problematic transactions, including some linked to President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, according to people close to the bank and others familiar with the matter.

The criminal investigation into Deutsche Bank is one element of several separate but overlapping government examinations into how illicit funds flow through the American financial system, said five of the people, who were not authorized to speak publicly about the inquiries. Several other banks are also being investigated.

View the complete June 19 article by David Enrich, Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum on The New York Times website here.

Trump, Inc.: Why Did Deutsche Bank Keep Lending to Donald Trump?

Whispers of money laundering have swirled around Donald Trump’s businesses for years. One of his casinos, for example, was fined $10 million for not trying hard enough to prevent such machinations. Investors with shady financial histories sometimes popped up in his foreign ventures. And on Sunday, The New York Times reported that anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank internally flagged multiple transactions by Trump companies as suspicious. (A spokesperson for the Trump Organization called the article “absolute nonsense.”)

The remarkably troubled recent history of Deutsche Bank, its past money-laundering woes — and the bank’s striking relationship with Trump — are the subjects of this week’s episode of the “Trump, Inc.” podcast. The German bank loaned a cumulative total of around $2.5 billion to Trump projects over the past two decades, and the bank continued writing him nine-figure checks even after he defaulted on a $640 million obligation and sued the bank, blaming it for his failure to pay back the debt.

“Trump, Inc.” isn’t the only one examining the president’s relationship with the bank. Congressional investigators have gone to court seeking the kind of detailed — and usually secret — banking records that could reveal potential misdeeds related to the president’s businesses, according to recent filings by two congressional committees. The filings were made in response to a highly unusual move by lawyers for Trump, his family and his company seeking to quash congressional subpoenas issued to Deutsche Bank and Capital One, a second institution he banked with. Trump’s lawyers have contended that the congressional subpoenas “were issued to harass” Trump and damage him politically.

View the complete May 24 article by Heather Vogell and Andrea Bernstein on the National Memo website here.

Deutsche Bank Staff Saw Suspicious Activity in Trump and Kushner Accounts

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Anti-money-laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving legal entities controlled by Donald J. Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog.

The transactions, some of which involved Mr. Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to five current and former bank employees. Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes.

But executives at Deutsche Bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice. The reports were never filed with the government.

View the complete May 19 article by David Enrich on The New York Times website here.

Deutsche Bank begins process of providing Trump financial records to New York’s attorney general

(CNN) —  Deutsche Bank has begun the process of providing financial records to New York state’s attorney general in response to a subpoena for documents related to loans made to President Donald Trump and his business, according to a person familiar with the production.

Last month, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas for records tied to funding for several Trump Organization projects.

The state’s top legal officer opened a civil probe after Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress in a public hearing that Trump had inflated his assets. Cohen at that time presented copies of financial statements he said had been provided to Deutsche Bank.

View the complete April 24 article by Cristina Alesci on the CNN website here.

House Democrats subpoena Deutsche Bank, other financial institutions tied to Trump

House Democrats issued subpoenas Monday for records from Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions, seeking information regarding President Trump’s business ventures as several congressional panels took steps to intensify their scrutiny of the president’s personal accounts and corporate dealings.

The subpoenas, first reported by the New York Times, were issued by the House Intelligence and Financial Services committees, which have been leading the Democrats’ probe of Trump’s finances. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Financial Services Committee, said in a statement Monday that Trump’s “potential use of the U.S. financial system for illicit purposes is a very serious concern.”

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the Intelligence Committee, has also said the panels want to know whether the president’s financial transactions left him susceptible to foreign influence that could compromise his duties as president.

View the complete April 15 article by Karoun Demirjian on The Washington Post website here.

A Mar-a-Lago Weekend and an Act of God: Trump’s History With Deutsche Bank The headquarters of Deutsche Bank

As President Trump delivered his inaugural address in 2017, a slight woman with feathered gray hair sat listening, bundled in a hooded white parka in a fenced-off V.I.P. section. Her name was Rosemary T. Vrablic. She was a managing director at Deutsche Bank and one of the reasons Mr. Trump had just taken the oath of office.

It was a moment of celebration — and a moment of worry for Ms. Vrablic’s employer.

Mr. Trump and Deutsche Bank were deeply entwined, their symbiotic bond born of necessity and ambition on both sides: a real estate mogul made toxic by polarizing rhetoric and a pattern of defaults, and a bank with intractable financial problems and a history of misconduct.

View the complete March 18 article by David Enrich on The New York Times website here.

New York Attorney General Slaps Deutsche Bank With Subpoenas

The attorney general of New York, Letitia James, has dropped new subpoenas on two banks, Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank. Those banks are connected to four different Trump Organization projects, including Trump’s unsuccessful attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills football team. It’s all part of the fallout from Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony.

When Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, testified before Congress two weeks ago, he stated that Trump inflated his net worth on financial statements. In fact, Cohen said that Trump gave Deutsche Bank falsified statements that overstated his net worth by $4 billion when he was angling to purchase the Bills.

Apparently, even Deutsche Bank, which loaned Trump money when no one else would, knew Trump’s estimations of his wealth were absurd. Officials at the bank viewed his estimates as “wildly optimistic,” and they would usually decrease them by as much as 70 percent.

View the complete March 12 article by Lisa Needham with The American Independent on the National Memo website here.

Deutsche Bank Weighed Extending Trump Loans on Default Risk

Bank is said to have been concerned about default in office

Executives considered extending maturities to address risk

Top Deutsche Bank AG executives were so concerned after the 2016 U.S. election that the Trump Organization might default on about $340 million of loans while Donald Trump was in office that they discussed extending repayment dates until after the end of a potential second term in 2025, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Members of the bank’s management board, including then Chief Executive Officer John Cryan, were leery of the public relations disaster they would face if they went after the assets of a sitting president, said the people, who asked for anonymity because the discussions were private. The discussions were about risks to the bank’s reputation and did not relate to any heightened concerns about the creditworthiness of Trump or his company, the people said.

The bank ultimately decided against restructuring the loans to the Trump Organization, which come due in 2023 and 2024, and chose instead not to do any new business with Trump while he is president, one of the people said.

View the complete February article by Gavin Finch, Steven Arons and Shahien Nasiripou on the Bloomberg website here.