
Police officers walk into the corporate headquarters of Deutsche Bank on November 29, 2018 in Frankfurt, Germany. (Photo: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)
'The One Financial Institution That Stuck with Trump': Deutsche Bank Headquarters Raided in Germany
"Trump's long and winding history with Deutsche Bank could now be at the center of Robert Mueller's investigation."
As news broke Thursday morning that Deutsche Bank's German headquarters had been raided in Frankfurt over, numerous observers were quick to note the bank's deep ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The bank's offices were reportedly raided in connection with the Panama Papers money laundering investigation. Two employees and several "unidentified people in positions of authority" are suspected of failing to report the laundering of more than $350 million which were kept by the bank in accounts located in the British Virgin Islands.
According to NPR, more than 900 Deutsche Bank clients were able to keep their money on the islands in 2016.
In addition to its ongoing legal troubles, having been fined $600 million just last year for laundering $10 billion in Russian currency, Deutsche Bank has been known in recent years as "the one financial institution that stuck with Donald Trump when virtually all other banks wouldn't touch him," as John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus, wrote in Common Dreams in July.
As Trump's former top aide Steve Bannon said in early 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's campaign will largely deal with the president's finances with the bank.
The probe, he said "goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. They're going to go right through that."
The bank continued to extend credit to Trump after he failed to pay back $330 million on a loan. Deutsche Bank also counts other members of the Trump family, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, among its clients. The bank opened its own investigation into Trump shortly after he entered office to determine whether its loans to the president had any links to Moscow.
Mueller last year subpoenaed the bank as part of his investigation into Trump's campaign, ignoring the president's "red line" that his finances should be off limits to the probe. The subpoena reportedly led to private calls from Trump to shut down the special counsel's investigation.
"The information that could bring down Trump--and that presumably Robert Mueller is trying to obtain--may be somewhere in the Deutsche Bank files," wrote Feffer earlier this year. "The relevant documents would link the bank's two most questionable financial activities--lending to Trump and washing Russian money."
Urgent. It's never been this bad.
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission from the outset was simple. To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It’s never been this bad out there. And it’s never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed and doing some of its best and most important work, the threats we face are intensifying. Right now, with just two days to go in our Spring Campaign, we're falling short of our make-or-break goal. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Can you make a gift right now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? There is no backup plan or rainy day fund. There is only you. —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
As news broke Thursday morning that Deutsche Bank's German headquarters had been raided in Frankfurt over, numerous observers were quick to note the bank's deep ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The bank's offices were reportedly raided in connection with the Panama Papers money laundering investigation. Two employees and several "unidentified people in positions of authority" are suspected of failing to report the laundering of more than $350 million which were kept by the bank in accounts located in the British Virgin Islands.
According to NPR, more than 900 Deutsche Bank clients were able to keep their money on the islands in 2016.
In addition to its ongoing legal troubles, having been fined $600 million just last year for laundering $10 billion in Russian currency, Deutsche Bank has been known in recent years as "the one financial institution that stuck with Donald Trump when virtually all other banks wouldn't touch him," as John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus, wrote in Common Dreams in July.
As Trump's former top aide Steve Bannon said in early 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's campaign will largely deal with the president's finances with the bank.
The probe, he said "goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. They're going to go right through that."
The bank continued to extend credit to Trump after he failed to pay back $330 million on a loan. Deutsche Bank also counts other members of the Trump family, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, among its clients. The bank opened its own investigation into Trump shortly after he entered office to determine whether its loans to the president had any links to Moscow.
Mueller last year subpoenaed the bank as part of his investigation into Trump's campaign, ignoring the president's "red line" that his finances should be off limits to the probe. The subpoena reportedly led to private calls from Trump to shut down the special counsel's investigation.
"The information that could bring down Trump--and that presumably Robert Mueller is trying to obtain--may be somewhere in the Deutsche Bank files," wrote Feffer earlier this year. "The relevant documents would link the bank's two most questionable financial activities--lending to Trump and washing Russian money."
As news broke Thursday morning that Deutsche Bank's German headquarters had been raided in Frankfurt over, numerous observers were quick to note the bank's deep ties to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The bank's offices were reportedly raided in connection with the Panama Papers money laundering investigation. Two employees and several "unidentified people in positions of authority" are suspected of failing to report the laundering of more than $350 million which were kept by the bank in accounts located in the British Virgin Islands.
According to NPR, more than 900 Deutsche Bank clients were able to keep their money on the islands in 2016.
In addition to its ongoing legal troubles, having been fined $600 million just last year for laundering $10 billion in Russian currency, Deutsche Bank has been known in recent years as "the one financial institution that stuck with Donald Trump when virtually all other banks wouldn't touch him," as John Feffer, director of Foreign Policy in Focus, wrote in Common Dreams in July.
As Trump's former top aide Steve Bannon said in early 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's campaign will largely deal with the president's finances with the bank.
The probe, he said "goes through Deutsche Bank and all the Kushner shit. They're going to go right through that."
The bank continued to extend credit to Trump after he failed to pay back $330 million on a loan. Deutsche Bank also counts other members of the Trump family, including Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, among its clients. The bank opened its own investigation into Trump shortly after he entered office to determine whether its loans to the president had any links to Moscow.
Mueller last year subpoenaed the bank as part of his investigation into Trump's campaign, ignoring the president's "red line" that his finances should be off limits to the probe. The subpoena reportedly led to private calls from Trump to shut down the special counsel's investigation.
"The information that could bring down Trump--and that presumably Robert Mueller is trying to obtain--may be somewhere in the Deutsche Bank files," wrote Feffer earlier this year. "The relevant documents would link the bank's two most questionable financial activities--lending to Trump and washing Russian money."

