The real reason Deutsche Bank is choosing now to finally accuse Donald Trump of Russian money laundering
Just a few days before a federal judge is expected to rule that Donald Trump’s longtime accounting firm is allowed to immediately hand over his financial records to the Democratic House, which will set off a chain reaction of Trump’s financial improprieties being publicly exposed, Deutsche Bank is suddenly admitting that it noticed money laundering-like transactions from Trump and Jared Kushner in 2016 and 2017. This can’t be a coincidence.
During and after the 2016 election, Deutsche Bank’s anti-money laundering specialists spotted transactions from Trump, Kushner, and their respective business entities, which had the hallmarks of money laundering. Some of the transactions involved Russia. But the higher-ups at the bank stepped in and prevented the transactions from being reported to governmental regulators. What stands out here is the sourcing for this story, and the timing of it.
The NY Times story quotes one of the employees who was fired from Deutsche Bank for daring to point out Trump’s money laundering patterns. But this happened to her a couple years ago, and she never spoke up until right now. This suggests that she’s been limited by some kind of nondisclosure agreement. So who leaked this story to the media, thus allowing her to go ahead and speak up? There’s no way to know for sure, but the most logical answer is Deutsche Bank itself.
Yes, this story makes Deutsche Bank look terrible. Yes, it’ll likely result in massive financial penalties against Deutsche Bank. But consider what’s playing out right now. Maxine Waters confirmed on MSNBC a month ago that Deutsche Bank had already begun turning over Donald Trump’s financial records to her committee. So it’s clear that the bank has decided its best path forward is to cooperate with investigators and ask for mercy. In fact it would have turned over all of Trump’s records to Waters by now, if Trump hadn’t stepped in with last minute legal action.
That legal action isn’t playing out the way Trump had hoped. He was never going to win, but he was looking to drag it out in the court system for a long amount of time. Instead, the judge handling Trump’s suit against accounting firm Mazars has decided to fast track it, and he should rule this week that Mazars can go ahead and give Trump’s records to Congress. Based on that precedent, the courts will also rule soon that Deutsche Bank can finish turning over Trump’s records.
In other words, all of the financial improprieties between Deutsche Bank and Donald Trump are about to surface anyway – including the fact that Deutsche thought Trump was a Russian money launderer, and illegally covered it up instead of reporting it. Considering the timing, it feels like Deutsche is trying to get out ahead of this while it still can. Better for the bank to make it look like it did the wrong thing because it was afraid of retribution from the criminal President of the United States, than to be seen as still being on his team when his financial records do surface. Stay tuned – this is a huge revelation that should keep unfolding over the next few days.
