The House intelligence committee’s incoming Democratic majority is taking its first steps to follow Donald Trump’s money, planning to hire money-laundering and forensic accounting experts.
Incoming chairman Adam Schiff, who Trump mocked this week as “little Adam Schitt“, has said publicly that he’s interested in Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank, the German financial giant that has been scorched for its connections to money-laundering.
When other lenders were loath to lend money to Trump in the 1990s, Deutsche Bank stepped up and spotted Trump tons of cash.
Deutsche Bank is among Trump’s biggest creditors, according to his most recent financial disclosure, and has provided loans for Trump projects in Washington, Chicago and his golf resort outside Miami. Trump may still owe the bank up to $175 million, according to MarketWatch.
Financial ties to foreign governments, like Russia and Saudi Arabia, will also be examined, and Trump’s tax returns, which he promised to release during the 2016 campaign, may finally see the light of day.
Republicans and the Trump Organization have been able to ignore Democrats’ questions about the company’s finances and business practices.
Come January, Democrats taking control of the House will be able to investigate many angles, starting with how much contact the president maintains with Trump Organization executives after agreeing to suspend his role in running the company.
Representative Jackie Speier of California has even released a memo from advisers theorizing that Trump’s business may be a racketeering enterprise that facilitates money laundering.
“They can play that game, but we can play it better,” Trump said of the expected Democratic investigations on an array of topics.
At a White House news conference the day after the Nov. 6, he vowed a “war-like posture” if Democrats come after him.
For the first time since Trump took office, a dozen Democrats will head House committees that give their chairman the unilateral power to compel the production of documents and to issue subpoenas for testimony.
“We should use the subpoena power,” said Representative John Garamendi of California. “What will we learn? Well, that’s why you use a subpoena.”
As a member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Garamendi wants to inspect the Trump Organization’s lease agreement with the General Services Administration for Trump’s hotel in the Old Post Office building in Washington, he told Bloomberg Television this month.
Democrats also want to know details about the Trump Organization’s revenue from foreign governments because they’ve accused Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clauses by taking such payments at the hotel.
More broadly, Trump’s decision to maintain his business by placing it in a revocable trust run by his two adult sons and a longtime lieutenant — and his penchant to eat, golf and stay at his commercial properties — have prompted questions from Democrats and outside groups over whether Trump is using his office to boost his company’s image and revenue.
“We got to figure out when is he acting on behalf of the American people in a lot of his decisions, or is he acting on his own behalf,” Representative Elijah Cummings, who is in line to lead the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told ABC News.