Trump mocks the New York Times for being reported by Deutsche Bank

President Donald Trump once again leaned on the New York Times on Twitter to deny and derogate his report that Deutsche Bank anti-money laundering specialists had reported transactions involving him. and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Software designed to identify illegal activity has alerted staff on the transactions, involving the Trump Foundation and Trump and Kushner-owned business entities, the Times newspaper said Sunday quoting five former and current Deutsche Bank employees.

After reviewing the transactions, the bank's staff is prepared to categorize the suspicious activity reports to be sent to the Treasury Department. But the bank had granted trump and Kushner loans worth billions of dollars, and bank officials ordered staff not to file reports, according to the Times.

On Monday, the president protested against "The Failing New York Times" – which he said will "disappear when I leave my office in 6 years" – and against the "Fake News Media" in a series of tweets.

But Trump did not address the reported suspicious activity, focusing instead on the assertion of the article – which was widely reported previously – that he would have borrowed from Deutsche Bank while other lenders did not want to give him money.

"FALSE! It's because I did not need money," Trump said. "Very old-fashioned, but true."

"When you do not need money or do not want money, you do not need banks.The banks have always been at my disposal, they want to earn money. # 39; money. " Trump said Deutsche Bank was "very good and extremely professional", but "if for some reason I did not like them, I would have gone elsewhere".

"There was always a lot of money and banks to choose from.

He added that the information that he had been rejected by other lenders was aimed at "denigrating" him and that the journalists use anonymous sources "because their sources do not even exist". All employees of Deutsche Bank in the Times, except one, were anonymous.

Despite his claims that he did not "need or want money," the president still owes $ 300 million to the bank, according to the Associated Press. And in 2016, the bank lent $ 285 million to Kushner Companies' subsidiaries.

The bank lent money to Trump after several bankruptcies and failures in the 1990s.

Tammy McFadden, a former anti-money laundering specialist at Deutsche Bank, told The Times that in 2016, she had examined transactions between Kusnher and Russian individuals. She estimated that the activity should be reported to the federal government, in part because the bank had already been fined for non-reporting of money laundering by Russia.

Other employees told the Times that the Bank's Special Investigations Unit, charged with investigating potential financial crimes, "had produced several reports of suspicious activity involving different entities that M Trump owned or controlled. At least one involved the Trump Foundation.

But the bank chose not to forward the reports to the Treasury Department.

"You show them everything, you make a recommendation to them and nothing happens," McFadden told The Times. "It's like that, they tend to neglect everything."

Deutsche Bank sacked McFadden in April 2018 after being transferred for lack of productivity. But she told The Times that the bank had "tried to shut her up" for asking too many questions about why Trump and other well – known customers were not being targeted. a more thorough check. Two former anonymous officials told The Times that they had agreed that she had been fired for being expressed.

Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Kerrie McHugh told the Times: "At no time was an investigator prevented from conducting a potentially suspicious escalation activity.

"In addition, the suggestion that anyone would have been reassigned or fired for the purpose of voiding customer concerns is totally false," McHugh said.

Trump spokeswoman Amanda Miller told the Times that she was not aware of any "reported" transactions with the bank.

"Any allegation about the relationship between Deutsche Bank and the Kushner companies involving money laundering is completely false and totally false, and the New York Times continues to create points that simply do not fit together," the statement said. Times Karen Zabarsky, spokeswoman for Kushner Companies.

Although the report does not indicate that Trump-related transactions involve Russians, but Trump said he thought it was the consequence.

"Now the big new story is that Trump has made a lot of money and buys everything for money, he does not need banks," Trump tweeted. "But where did he get all that money, would it be Russia?" No, I built a big company and I do not need banks, but if I did it they would be here. "

Trump and three of his children – Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump – sued Deutsche Bank for the purpose of preventing him from complying with a congressional summons regarding family financial records.

Deutsche Bank has been hit with several fines by US and European regulators in recent years. In 2015, the bank was fined $ 258 million for violating sanctions imposed on Iran and other blacklisted countries. In 2017, he finalized an agreement to pay $ 7.2 billion to mislead investors about mortgage-backed securities. The same year, a fine of $ 630 million was inflicted as part of a Russian money laundering scheme.

Contributor: Kevin McCoy, Kristin Lam and David Jackson

Trump's lawyers question the power of Congress: Battle provokes home demand for financial documents

Read or share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/05/20/trump-derides-new-york-times-report-deutsche-bank-flagged-him/3738886002/