add a new arms race to this and you republicans are getting what you voted for
Trump May Have a $300 Million Conflict of Interest With Deutsche Bank
Keri Geiger, Greg Farrell, Sarah Mulholland Thu, Dec 22 2:01 AM PST
For years, Donald Trump has used a powerful tool when dealing with bankers: his personal guarantee.
Now that guarantee -- employed to extract better terms on hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to the Trump Organization -- is at the center of a delicate loan-restructuring discussion at Deutsche Bank AG, which is under investigation on several fronts by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The bank is trying to restructure some of Trump’s roughly $300 million debt as part of an attempt to reduce any conflict of interest between the loan and his presidency, according to a person familiar with the matter. Normally, the removal of a personal pledge might lead to more-stringent terms. But there is little normal about this interaction. Trump’s attorney general will inherit an investigation of Deutsche Bank related to stock trades for rich clients in Russia -- where Trump says he plans to improve relations -- and may have to deal with a possible multibillion-dollar penalty to the bank related to mortgage-bond investigations .
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Whatever terms a restructured loan might include, they will reflect the complex new relationship spawned between Germany’s largest bank and its highest-profile client. Ethicists say this concerns them.
‘Looks Terrible’
“When you have political appointees making decisions about banks that the president owes a lot of money to, it looks terrible,” said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who was the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “The U.S. government is dealing with regulatory and criminal issues with the big banks all the time, and if he owes them a lot of money, there might be an incentive to favor less regulation and less enforcement for the banks.”
Trump May Have a $300 Million Conflict of Interest With Deutsche Bank
Keri Geiger, Greg Farrell, Sarah Mulholland Thu, Dec 22 2:01 AM PST
For years, Donald Trump has used a powerful tool when dealing with bankers: his personal guarantee.
Now that guarantee -- employed to extract better terms on hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to the Trump Organization -- is at the center of a delicate loan-restructuring discussion at Deutsche Bank AG, which is under investigation on several fronts by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The bank is trying to restructure some of Trump’s roughly $300 million debt as part of an attempt to reduce any conflict of interest between the loan and his presidency, according to a person familiar with the matter. Normally, the removal of a personal pledge might lead to more-stringent terms. But there is little normal about this interaction. Trump’s attorney general will inherit an investigation of Deutsche Bank related to stock trades for rich clients in Russia -- where Trump says he plans to improve relations -- and may have to deal with a possible multibillion-dollar penalty to the bank related to mortgage-bond investigations .
More from Bloomberg.com: China Cheers as Taiwan Splits With One of Last Few Friends
Whatever terms a restructured loan might include, they will reflect the complex new relationship spawned between Germany’s largest bank and its highest-profile client. Ethicists say this concerns them.
‘Looks Terrible’
“When you have political appointees making decisions about banks that the president owes a lot of money to, it looks terrible,” said Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who was the chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “The U.S. government is dealing with regulatory and criminal issues with the big banks all the time, and if he owes them a lot of money, there might be an incentive to favor less regulation and less enforcement for the banks.”
