Since 1998, the republican President Donald Trump has been relying on loans from Deutsche Bank to the tune of about $2 billion dollars. It’s important that the US House Finance Committee members led by the Democratic Party Chair Rep. Maxine Waters delve into the president’s finances through this window, of Deutsche Bank.
This is the same bank that was fined in January 2017 by US and UK governmental agencies for over $630 million dollars for laundering about $10 billion dollars of Russian monies.
This is also where the Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya first entered the US stage to represent Russian Interests. Guess who was the SDNY US Attorney’s office who initiated the civil forfeiture case in 2013 against Deutsche Bank? The case filing was alleging that 11 companies (including Deutsche Bank) were involved in a tax fraud in Russia and then laundered a portion of the $230 million they got into Manhattan real estate. It was none other than Preet Bharara.” (This is probably why he was fired in March 2017 by President Donald Trump, and why the bank ended up with a sweetheart settlement agreement with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) led by the US AG Jeff Sessions in 2017.)
Here’s the one set of transactions out of many that I would like reviewed:
Deutsche Bank under the leadership of Josef Ackermann, considered making a (2004 Chicago Project) loan, as Mr. Trump wooed him and fellow bankers with flights on his private plane, according to a person familiar with the pitch. In a Trump Tower meeting, he told Mr. Justin Kennedy (Supreme Court Judge Anthony Kennedy’s son) that his daughter Ivanka would be in charge of the Chicago project, a sign of the family’s commitment to its success.
It was this same Mr. Josef Ackermann who became the head of the Cyprus Bank in 2014 where the current Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross was an owner and where the number one shareholder in the Cyprus Bank, Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev purchased in 2008 a Palm Beach Property owned by Donald Trump at about $40 million dollars over its market price.
As per a 3/18/19 NYT report, (around 2004) “Mr. Trump told Deutsche Bank his net worth was about $3 billion, but when bank employees reviewed his finances, they concluded he was worth about $788 million, according to documents produced during a lawsuit Mr. Trump brought against the former New York Times journalist Timothy O’Brien. And a senior investment-banking executive said in an interview that he and others cautioned that Mr. Trump should be avoided because he had worked with people in the construction industry connected to organized crime.”
“Nonetheless, Deutsche Bank agreed in 2005 to lend Mr. Trump more than $500 million for the (Chicago) project. He personally guaranteed $40 million of it, meaning the bank could come after his personal assets if he defaulted.”
(But later around 2008, Mr. Trump defaulted on this $40 million based on an ‘Act of God’ clause in his contract with Deutsche Bank.)
“A provision in the loan let Mr. Trump partially off the hook in the event of a “force majeure,” essentially an act of God, like a natural disaster. The former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan had called the financial crisis a tsunami. And what was a tsunami if not a natural disaster?”
I’m hoping that the House Judiciary Committee members delve into what I’ve long suspected about a connection between Bank of Cyprus and Deutsche Bank. This is the time frame (2008) where a Russian oligarch bought Mr. Trump’s Palm Beach boondoggle at an inflated price of at least $40 million dollars over a conservative market price figure where the $40 million dollar default issue with Deutsche Bank, disappeared and where it continued to loan him money.
It’s a small world. Here’s the rest of the story…
On March 18, 2019, David Enrich of the New York Times penned the following report, “A Mar-a-Lago Weekend and an Act of God: Trump’s History With Deutsche Bank”
Excerpts:
“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.
“Then Mr. Trump won the 2016 election, and the German bank shifted into damage-control mode, bracing for an onslaught of public scrutiny, according to several people involved in the internal response.”
“In the weeks before Ms. Vrablic attended his swearing-in, the bank commissioned reports to figure out how it had gotten in so deep with Mr. Trump. It issued an unusual edict to its Wall Street employees: Do not publicly utter the word “Trump.”
“More than two years later, Mr. Trump’s financial ties with Deutsche Bank are the subject of investigations by two congressional committees and the New York attorney general. Investigators hope to use Deutsche Bank as a window into Mr. Trump’s personal and business finances.”
“Deutsche Bank officials have quietly argued to regulators, lawmakers and journalists that Mr. Trump was not a priority for the bank or its senior leaders and that the lending was the work of a single, obscure division. But interviews with more than 20 current and former Deutsche Bank executives and board members, most of them with direct knowledge of the Trump relationship, contradict the bank’s narrative.”
“Over nearly 2 decades, Deutsche Bank’s leaders repeatedly saw red flags surrounding Mr. Trump. There was a disastrous bond sale, a promised loan that relied on a banker’s forged signature, wild exaggerations of Mr. Trump’s wealth, even a claim of an act of God.”
“But Deutsche Bank had a ravenous appetite for risk and limited concern about its clients’ reputations. Time after time, with the support of two different chief executives, the bank handed money — a total of well over $2 billion — to a man whom nearly all other banks had deemed untouchable.”
‘A Great Son!’
“In the late 1990s, Deutsche Bank, which is based in Germany, was trying to make a name for itself on Wall Street. Its investment-banking division went on a hiring binge.”
“The bank recruited a handful of Goldman Sachs traders to lead a push into commercial real estate. One was Justin Kennedy, the son of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Another was Mike Offit, whose father was the writer Sidney Offit.”
“At Deutsche Bank, Mr. Offit’s mandate was to lend money to big real estate developers, package the loans into securities and sell the resulting bonds to investors. He said in an interview that one way to stand out in a crowded market was to make loans that his rivals considered too risky.”
“In 1998, a broker contacted him to see if he would consider lending to a Wall Street pariah: Mr. Trump, who was then a casino magnate whose bankruptcies had cost banks hundreds of millions of dollars.”
“Mr. Offit took the meeting.”
“A few days later, Mr. Offit’s secretary called him. “Donald Trump is in the conference room,” she whispered. Mr. Offit said he rushed in, expecting to find an entourage. Mr. Trump was alone.”
“He was looking for a $125 million loan to pay for gut renovations of 40 Wall Street, his Art Deco tower in Lower Manhattan. Mr. Offit was impressed by the pitch, and the loan sailed through Deutsche Bank’s approval process.”
“Mr. Trump seemed giddy with gratitude, Mr. Offit recalled. He took Mr. Offit golfing. He flew him by helicopter to Atlantic City for boxing matches. He wrote a grateful note to Sidney Offit for having “a great son!”
“Mr. Offit commissioned a detailed model of 40 Wall Street. A golden plaque on its pedestal bore the names and logos of Deutsche Bank and the Trump Organization. Mr. Offit gave one to Mr. Trump and kept another in his office.”
“Mr. Trump soon came looking for $300 million for the construction of a skyscraper across from the United Nations headquarters. The loan was approved. He wanted hundreds of millions more for his Trump Marina casino in Atlantic City. Mr. Offit pledged to line up cash for that, too.”
“Not long after, Edson Mitchell, a top bank executive, discovered that the signature of the credit officer who had approved the Trump Marina deal had been forged, Mr. Offit said. (Mr. Offit was never accused of forgery; the loan never went through.)”
“Mr. Offit was fired months later. He said it was because Mr. Mitchell claimed that he was reckless, a charge Mr. Offit disputed.”
“It was the first hiccup in the Trump relationship. It wouldn’t be the last.”
Link to entire riveting, lengthy article: A Mar-a-Lago Weekend and an Act of God: Trump’s History
See Washington Times: Germany’s Deutsche Bank, Commerzbank to hold talks on merger
Gronda Morin 
You know and I know and thousands of others know what a CROOK he is. Hopefully it will all be brought into a shiny bright light and some long-needed actions will take place. Although as much as he’s gotten away with so far, I won’t hold by breath. The New York case is probably our best hope.
It’s amazing how the “rich and famous” always seem to be exempt from their “sins.”
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Dear Nan,
I think its telling that the head of the FBI Trump-Russia probe Robert Mueller will be on the job for awhile more and that the DOJ official Rod Rosenstein has chosen not to leave in the near future.
I’m holding my breath.
Hugs, Gronda
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I was thinking the same thing, the act of God quote, I can just see him laughing about it. I wish people would wake up.
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Dear Rugby843,
President Trump will rue the day he decided to run to become the 45th US president. There’s no way that he won’t pay a heavy price. What’s frightening is that he has over a year to do more damage to this country and its peoples until he’s stopped.
Hugs, Gronda
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