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President Donald Trump listens to questions during a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, United States, on May 13, 2019.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump on Monday defended his personal solvency and long-standing relationship with Deutsche Bank, following a report released this weekend by the New York Times that the German bank had ignored the signals. alarm issued by its own employees on potentially illegal transactions between Trump. and other external entities.
In a series of tweets on Monday, Trump ignored the knot of the story, namely how the bank handled suspicious activity reports filed by its employees regarding transactions involving both Trump-controlled entities and corporations controlled by his son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner.
Instead, a particular line of history seemed to shock the president: the description made by journalist David Enrich of Deutsche Bank's Times newspaper as "the only traditional financial institution still willing to do business with the real estate developer" .
Trump accused the Times of having "written false stories about the fact that I did not use a lot of banks because they did not want to do business with me." FALSE! This is because I did not need money. "
The tweets were the last chapter in the president's decades-long effort to rebuff published reports that his previous business failures, failed businesses, and contentious reputation have made Trump and his family-owned real estate company an unwanted customer for some of the biggest Wall Street banks.
These failures include a series of casino bankruptcies, the bankruptcy of the Plaza Hotel in New York and an airline, a mortgage lending company and a for-profit for-profit company going bankrupt.
According to the Times, Goldman Sachs has already used Trump as an example for new employees of the type of potential customer they should avoid.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the tweets. But a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization told The Times this weekend that the company is not aware of suspicious activity reports and that it has no "operating account at Deutsche Bank".
However, Trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to Deutsche Bank, which has financed several of its most prestigious real estate acquisitions over the past decade, including the Old Post Office building in Washington, DC, now operating under the name of Trump. International hotel.
According to Trump's latest financial reporting form, filed last week with the government's Ethics Office, the president also owes tens of millions of dollars to several small banks for loans taken out until 2000 and the first one was set up. ;last year.
Starting in 2005, Trump also purchased a series of cash buildings, including five homes, eight golf courses in the United States and abroad, and a wine estate in Virginia, which, according to the Washington Post , would have cost Trump more than $ 400 million.
The Trumps have so far given little detail about the exact source of money for these purchases, except to say that it was the result of profitable business management.
In his tweets on Monday, Trump hinted at questions regarding all-cash purchases and denied that money came from Russian investors.
Trump's personal denial that Russian money helped finance his buying frenzy should not satisfy Congressional Democrats, who are looking for much more information than that, including statements from President's income.
Earlier this spring, the House Oversight Committee assigned Mazars USA, Trump's long-time accounting firm, to appear for documents related to the alleged misrepresentation of its assets by the President in previous attempts to get a loan.
Earlier this month, the Trump family filed a lawsuit against Deutsche Bank and Mazars, to prevent them from handing over documents to congressional investigators.
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