Following recent Supreme Court rulings, there’s heightened interest in Donald Trump’s hidden financial records, including a New York prosecutor’s office that’s sought materials from the president’s accounting firm. Just this week, the Manhattan district attorney’s office suggested that Trump’s company is under investigation for alleged insurance and bank fraud.
Indeed, New York prosecutors, in defense of a subpoena, explicitly referred in a court filing to the possibility of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization.”
But the president’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, isn’t the only institution of interest. The New York Times reported overnight on the same Manhattan district attorney’s office also subpoenaing Deutsche Bank — which loaned Trump $2 billion over the course of two decades — as part of a criminal investigation that increasingly appears to have a broad scope.
And while that’s important in its own right, this was even more striking:
Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided [Manhattan District Attorney Cy] Vance’s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that Mr. Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans, according to two of the people familiar with the inquiry…. The subpoena to Deutsche Bank sought documents on various topics related to Mr. Trump and his company, including any materials that might point to possible fraud, according to two people briefed on the subpoena’s contents.
The Times‘ article added, “The bank’s cooperation with Mr. Vance’s office is significant because other investigations that have sought Mr. Trump’s financial records have been stymied by legal challenges from the president and his family.”
Exactly. We’re accustomed to learning about a variety of efforts, launched by investigators, to learn more about the president’s financial records, which he’s fought vehemently to hide for reasons he won’t explain. But this is new: if the reporting is accurate, New York prosecutors have successfully acquired Trump’s financial materials from his longtime lender. The cases that reached the Supreme Court, and which are now being litigated in lower courts, deal with ongoing efforts that have yet to be resolved. But if Deutsche Bank has already complied with a subpoena, turning over detailed records, that probably ought to make the president a little nervous. Or, given the scope of the multi-faceted allegations, more than a little nervous.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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