Deutsche Bank Records Said to Be Subpoenaed by Mueller
Deutsche Bank has received a subpoena from special prosecutor Robert Mueller over its dealings with Trump.
(Bloomberg) -- 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.
“Deutsche Bank always cooperates with investigating authorities in all countries,” the lender said in a statement to Bloomberg on Tuesday, declining to provide additional information. A spokesman for Mueller’s office declined to comment.
Deutsche Bank for months has rebuffed calls by Democratic lawmakers to provide more transparency over the roughly $300 million Trump owed to the bank for his real estate dealings prior to becoming president. Representative Maxine Waters of California and other Democrats have asked whether the bank’s loans to Trump, made years before he ran for president, were in any way connected to Russia. The bank rejected those demands, saying sharing client data would be illegal unless it received a formal request to do so. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.
Flynn Plea
Mueller’s investigation -- which is looking into alleged Russian interference into last year’s U.S. election and whether Trump’s winning campaign assisted in those efforts -- appears to be entering a new phase. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty Friday to lying to FBI agents, becoming the fourth associate of the president ensnared by Mueller’s probe. More significantly, he is now cooperating with Mueller’s inquiry.
Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank stretches back some two decades and the roughly $300 million he owed to the bank represented nearly half of his outstanding debt, according to a July 2016 analysis by Bloomberg. That figure includes a $170-million loan Trump took out to finish a hotel in Washington. He also has two mortgages against his Trump National Doral Miami resort and a loan against his tower in Chicago.
Deutsche Bank management is ready to share information about the lender’s dealings with Trump and is hopeful that doing so will help end the series of inquiries from Democrats, an executive at the bank, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, has previously told Bloomberg News.
An internal investigation carried out by Deutsche Bank didn’t yield any evidence of connections between the client relationship with Trump and the bank’s so-called Russian mirror trades affair, a person briefed on the matter said. The bank has settled U.S. and U.K. investigations into how it helped Russian clients move money out of the country, but a U.S. Department of Justice investigation remains open.
In July, Trump said in an interview with the New York Times that if Mueller examined his family’s finances beyond any relationship with Russia he’d consider it "a violation." Mueller’s investigation is examining a broad range of transactions involving the president’s businesses, those of his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and deals by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a person familiar with the probe told Bloomberg News after the publication of the Times interview.
Priebus, Kellogg
Mueller’s team has been interviewing White House aides in recent weeks, including former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, former spokesman Sean Spicer and National Security Council chief of staff Keith Kellogg, according to people familiar with the investigation.
As Mueller’s investigation unfolds, Trump has gone on the offensive. Over the weekend on Twitter, he attacked the FBI and Mueller’s team and defended some of Flynn’s actions. In particular, Trump hailed the news that one of Mueller’s aides had been removed from his job over the summer for some anti-Trump text messages.
On Monday, as he left the White House for a trip to Utah, Trump restated his sympathy for Flynn and his assertion that prosecutors should have pursued action against his general election rival, Hillary Clinton.
--With assistance from Billy House Chris Strohm Ross Larsen Kathleen Hunter and Alan Katz
To contact the reporter on this story: Steven Arons in Frankfurt at sarons@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christine Harper at charper@bloomberg.net, Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net.
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