Deutsche Bank Remains Trumps Biggest Conflict of Interest Despite Settlements
Deutsche Bank is Trumps largest lender. While the troubled bank has settled several of the charges against it, its still undergoing scrutiny by the Justice Department and other federal regulators, and is being overseen by six independent monitors, making conflicts of interest inescapable.
If you measure President Donald Trumps conflicts of interest by the amount of money at stake, or the variety of dicey interactions with government regulators, one dwarfs any other: his relationship with Deutsche Bank.
In recent weeks, Deutsche Bank has scrambled to reach agreements with American regulators over a host of alleged misdeeds. But because the president has not sold his company, the bank remains a central arena for potential conflicts between his familys business interests and the actions of officials in his administration.
Deutsche poses the biggest conflict that we know about in terms of dollar amounts and the scale of legal exposures, says Brandon Garrett, a University of Virginia law professor and author of Too Big To Fail: How Prosecutors Compromise with Corporations. In trying to clear up its outstanding regulatory troubles, the bank may have tried to do its best to avoid the appearance of impropriety but it may be impossible for them to do so.
Deutsche is Trumps major creditor, having lent billions to the president since the late 1990s even as other American banks abandoned Trump, who frequently bankrupted his businesses. While the president hasnt released his tax returns, he has made public some information about his debts. According to these incomplete disclosures and reports, the Trump Organization has roughly $300 million in loans outstanding from the bank. Trump continues to own the business, although he has turned over day-to-day management to his sons.
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