German regulators raid Deutsche Bank

[The Barbarian]

German authorities raided the offices of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt on Thursday morning. Police and federal prosecutors were apparently looking for evidence of money laundering.
Deutsche Bank Offices In Frankfurt Raided By German Police

Trump's long and winding history with Deutsche Bank could now be at the center of Robert Mueller's investigation
President Donald Trump's longtime relationship with Deutsche Bank is receiving renewed attention after reports that US investigators asked the bank for information on accounts held by the president, his family, and associates.

Trump's relationship with the massive German bank dates back roughly 20 years and has taken many twists and turns. Now, that relationship could find itself at the center of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The president's association with the German bank was born in the late 1990s, when major Wall Street firms would no longer loan Trump money following a series of disastrous ventures such as the Trump Shuttle and Trump's Atlantic City casinos.

The relationship began in 1998, when a group of real-estate bankers gave Trump a $125 million loan for renovations to his 40 Wall Street property. Deutsche Bank's real estate business had only been in operation for a year at that point, so the group, led by Mike Offit, was willing to take a risk on Trump, who was essentially blacklisted by the major Wall Street firms, Bloomberg reported.
Trump's long and winding history with Deutsche Bank could now be at the center of Robert Mueller's investigation

 

[Brightmoon]

Oooooh!

 

[The Barbarian]

I imagine Mueller will be very interested to see what they've found.

Over the next few years, the money kept rolling in for Trump. He took out two mortgages against a resort in Miami and a $170 million loan to finish his hotel in Washington, D.C. According to Bloomberg, by the time Trump was elected president of the United States in November 2016, he owed Deutsche around $300 million, an unprecedented debt for an incoming president. (His June financial disclosure showed he owes the bank $130 million, which is due in full in 2024.)

The loans to Trump weren’t the only abnormal behavior at Deutsche. Around the same time he received his new line of credit, the bank was laundering money, according to the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS). Russian money. Billions of dollars that flowed from Moscow to London, then from London to New York—part of a scheme for which European and American regulators eventually punished the bank.

Was the timing of this illicit operation and the loans to Trump coincidental? Or evidence of something more sinister—a critical chapter in the president’s long history of suspicious business deals with Russian and post-Soviet oligarchs? In January, Trump claimed the former, tweeting in his usual bombastic style: “I have nothing to do with Russia—no deals, no loans, no nothing.” But the president’s refusal to accept the assessment of his intelligence agencies—that Moscow meddled in the 2016 election—has, among other things, fueled suspicions about his ties to Russia.

Robert Mueller is now trying to find out the truth about those suspicions. The special counsel is investigating Russian interference—from the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) to alleged coordination between the Trump campaign and Moscow. So far, his team has charged key Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates with money laundering, as well as other offenses. He’s also gotten two former advisers, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos, to plead guilty to lying to the FBI and cooperate with the probe.

Now, however, Mueller appears to be following the money, trying to determine if Trump has a financial connection to Russia—one that might at least partly explain his behavior. In December, the German newspaper Handelsblatt reported that the special counsel’s office has subpoenaed Deutsche Bank, demanding data and documents related to people or entities tied to the president and those close to him. The White House says the subpoena doesn’t directly pertain to Trump or his family’s accounts. But if the president has a dark Russian secret, the German banking giant’s money-laundering scandal may be key to finding out what it is.
...
Everyone in Moscow understood that VTB was more than a bank. It had ties to Russian intelligence. Putin’s Federal Security Service (FSB) spy chief, Nikolai Patrushev, and his successor, Alexander Bortnikov, both sent their sons to work at VTB. The bank’s deputy chief executive, Vasily Titov, chaired the FSB’s public council.
VTB may have also had contacts with Trump associates, according to The New York Times. In November 2015, a few months after Trump announced he was running for president, one of his business partners, Felix Sater, wrote an email to Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, saying VTB had agreed to bankroll a Trump Tower Moscow project. Trump signed a letter of intent for the deal. When the project stalled, Cohen tried reaching out to Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, to help jump-start it. But it ultimately failed.
Is Donald Trump’s dark Russian secret hiding in Deutsche Bank’s vaults?

Howard Stern probably had it right; being president is likely to be a life-changing disaster for Donald Trump.

 

[Hank77]

It's likely that this thread will be ignored by Trump supporters. Not because it isn't relevant but because one can't fall back on the 'well, the previous guy......'

 

[The Barbarian]

Or we'll get something like...

"Yabut, when Obama was in college, he returned a video without rewinding it. So there!"

 

[Hank77]

Why should we believe that because the Germans raid a German bank that Mueller is investigating Trump in relationship to this bank?

 

[The Barbarian]

Deutsche Bank AG provided records to special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s investigation after receiving a subpoena several weeks ago, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Those records pertain to people affiliated with President Donald Trump, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the action hasn’t been announced. Several news outlets -- including Bloomberg -- reported yesterday that the subpoena targeted Trump and his family’s bank records, which was disputed by Trump’s personal lawyer and the White House.

“We have confirmed that the news reports that the Special Counsel had subpoenaed financial records relating to the president are false. No subpoena has been issued or received. We have confirmed this with the bank and other sources,” Trump’s lawyer John Dowd wrote in an email Dec. 5.


AFP reported late Dec. 5 that the subpoena was issued in connection with Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who was indicted in October. Manafort spokesman Jason Maloni declined to comment.
Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Just another piece to the puzzle he's working on.

 

[The Barbarian]

A quick refresher on some of the key points of the Trump-Deutsche Bank saga, now that The New York Times has reported that the president invoked his former business relationship with Justin Kennedy as part of a sustained effort to urge his father to retire:


As the Trump Organization limped through the 1990s and 2000s, Deutsche Bank was one of the only financial institutions willing to lend to him.

• Other big banks have long refused to lend to him, reportedly coining the term “the Donald risk” to refer to his repeated bankruptcies and failures to repay loans. However, Deutsche Bank, whose real-estate division continued to lend him hundreds of millions of dollars to finance his projects, seemed to have a greater risk appetite.
• Despite being a disastrous credit risk at Deutsche Bank as well, the relationship continued: Struggling to repay a $640 million loan after the 2008 financial crash, Trump instead sued a group of lenders led by the bank for $3 billion their roles in causing the crisis, only for Deutsche Bank to countersue for an unspecified amount.
• The cases were ultimately settled—and Deutsche Bank reopened its line of credit with Trump, who still owes the bank hundreds of millions of dollars, through its private-wealth-management side.
• Justin Kennedy not only held a senior executive position at Deutsche Bank but reportedly worked closely with Trump through this bizarre and tumultuous time, departing the firm soon after in 2009.
• Others in Trump’s orbit have also benefited from a relationship with Deutsche Bank; his son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner’s floundering real-estate empire has also received massive loans from Deutsche Bank, including $285 million one month before the 2016 election.

Trump has consistently labored to keep his finances opaque, but has been especially averse to any investigation of his Deutsche Bank activity.

• Trump once told The New York Times he considers investigating his and his family’s finances “a red line” and “a violation”, but Mueller has not stopped looking into the Trump Organization.
• One move in particular seemed to trigger an outsized response: After multiple outlets reported that Mueller had subpoenaed Deutsche Bank’s records on Trump’s accounts, Trump reportedly attempted to fire Mueller, only to pull back when Mueller’s team told him those reporters were inaccurate. A U.S. official has, however, told Reuters that Mueller is investigating whether Deutsche Bank may have sold Trump Organization debts to sanctioned Russian banks. (Neither Deutsche Bank nor the Russian banks contacted by Reuters commented on whether such a transaction was made.)

Meanwhile, Deutsche Bank has recently faced multiple scandals over its business practices in Russia.
Trump, Russia, and Deutsche Bank: What We Know So Far - The Moscow Project

 

[Hank77]

AFP reported late Dec. 5 that the subpoena was issued in connection with Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman who was indicted in October

That's Manafort yes and he was indicted for money laundering, which took place several yrs. ago.
I'm not seeing anything that definitively leads me to believe that Germans raiding a German bank has anything to do with Trump or his family, or that Mueller has been working with German law enforcement.

 

[The Barbarian]

Not everywhere there's smoke, there's a fire. But it's a pretty good working hypothesis. Worth looking into.