Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), incoming chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is looking into investigating President Trump’s business records with Deutsche Bank, recently stating that there might be potential money laundering charges.
“We are going to be looking at the issue of possible money laundering by the Trump Organization, and Deutsche Bank is one obvious place to start,” Schiff told The New Yorker.
The German multinational bank has been the subject of much controversy over the years.
Deutsche Bank’s headquarters on Nov. 29 were raided by prosecutors in a money laundering investigation in connection with the Panama Papers.
The raid came after the bank was fined in January 2017 for $630 million by U.S. and U.K. regulators in connection with a $10 billion Russian money laundering scheme.
In 2015, Deutsche Bank pled guilty in the U.S. to wire fraud for its role in the 2012 Libor scandal and paid $2.5 billion in fines.
Troubles that follow Deutsche may also follow Trump, as it has widely been reported that Deutsche was the only bank willing to give Trump loans in the late 1990s — a time when most banks would not lend to Trump after his many failed business ventures.
Trump’s financial disclosures show he has as much as $364 million in loans from the bank.
The Wall Street Journal in March 2016 reported that Trump and his companies had received at least $2.5 billion in loans from Deutsche Bank and co-lenders since 1998.
Deutsche Bank also has had a relationship with others close to Trump.
Special counsel Robert Mueller reportedly subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for information on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who in August was convicted in the Eastern District of Virginia on eight counts related to tax and bank fraud.
In December 2017, prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York reportedly subpoenaed Deutsche Bank for records related to the family of Trump’s son-in-law and White House adviser Jared Kushner.
In January, the Trump administration waived part of the punishment for five megabanks whose affiliates were convicted and fined for manipulating global interest rates.
One of the Trump administration waivers was granted to Deutsche Bank.
The waivers were issued in a little-noticed announcement published in the Federal Register during the Christmas holiday week.
They come less than two years after then-candidate Trump promised “I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder.”
Trump waived Deutsche Bank’s fines because the bank can’t afford them. If Deutsche Bank goes, it will take the entire world financial system with it. It’s already going down. Next year expect to see headlines about Deutsche Bank. It’s either going to get a massive bailout or get nationalized. If not, it’s Great Depression 2.0 for Europe.