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You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Breaking News: Deutsche Bank Was Subpoenaed By Manhattan DA Vance & THEY COMPLIED WITH THE SUBPOENA!!!!!!

Breaking News: Deutsche Bank Was Subpoenaed By Manhattan DA Vance & THEY COMPLIED WITH THE SUBPOENA!!!!!!

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Public Service Announcement: Ignore the National Polls 2

From The New York Times (emphasis mine):

The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into Mr. Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office issued the subpoena last year to Deutsche Bank, which has been Mr. Trump’s primary lender since the late 1990s, seeking financial records that he and his company provided to the bank, according to four people familiar with the inquiry.

Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided Mr. 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 bank’s response to the subpoena reinforces the seriousness of the legal threat the district attorney’s investigation poses for Mr. Trump, his family and his company, which in recent years have faced — and for the most part fended off — an onslaught of regulatory, congressional and criminal inquiries.

But while the subpoena of Deutsche Bank indicates the breadth of Mr. Vance’s investigation, his inquiry is still at an early stage, a person briefed on the matter said.

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 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.

Whatever records the Manhattan prosecutors obtain are subject to grand jury secrecy rules and might never become public unless the district attorney’s office brings charges and introduces the documents as evidence at a trial.

Even if investigators uncover what they think is evidence of fraud, criminal charges could be hard to prove. Valuing real estate assets involves subjective estimates and other assumptions, making it difficult to prove that someone intended to commit fraud. The New York Times reported previously that some Deutsche Bank officials viewed Mr. Trump’s financial statements as based on wildly optimistic assumptions and, in some cases, reduced his estimates of his assets’ values by up to 70 percent.

Much more at the link.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

98Comments

  2. 2.

    Jeffro

    but…but Kanye! ;)

    Goose = cooked. Keep yappin’ about yer Russian-fed conspiracy theories Miss Lindsey, for all the good it’s going to do you or trumpov.

    But yeah, I know, I know…don’t get too cocky, run through the finish line, and I agree.

  4. 4.

    Chetan Murthy

    I really want to believe that Vance is going to deliver.  But his track record doesn’t give me cause for hope.  He’s a corrupt sonofabitch, in the pocket of the rich, and I just don’t see him actually manning up for this.  Maybe if he gets replaced in the coming election, his replacement might do better.

  5. 5.

    Yutsano

    DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!!

    It sounds like they didn’t just ask for a few records either. I believe the phrase is “shit ton” of records. And they’ve been getting them since last year? Hoo boy they really have a compelling reason to request his tax records now!

    ALEXA! ALL THE POPCORN!!!

    <a href=”#comment-7804489″>@Chetan Murthy</a>:

    <blockquote>He’s a corrupt sonofabitch, in the pocket of the rich</blockquote>

    Oops. I already see your problem there chief. Dolt45 isn’t rich. He’s a huckster real estate developer from Queens. And you think Vance isn’t using this to bolster his election chances?

    Now why he let the female spawn and her huckster real estate developer spouse off is a different matter. I’m almost certain there was a bribe involved there somewhere.

  6. 6.

    Just Chuck

    So just vanilla asset inflation and nothing about the Russian Mob money he’s been laundering for decades?  Whatever, he’s been murdering people by the thousands on fifth, sixth, and every other avenue for months now, and it doesn’t seem register as a crime to the public.  We’re all numb to the ongoing gish gallop of crime and mendacity, and no press outfit considers it entertaining enough to call for resignation.

    Seems we’re all toast except for T.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    @Chetan Murthy:

    it IS sort of puzzling how Donald Trump conducted his entire white collar crime career in that jurisdiction and they’re just now getting around to issuing subpoenas

    30 years to nab this high profile criminal seems excessively long – I guess they were busy protecting Epstein

  11. 11.

    dr. bloor

    Deutsche Bank is not only not our friend, they’re not even the enemy of our enemy.  I’ll get excited about this when whatever they coughed up actually leads to an indictment.

  12. 12.

    MisterForkbeard

    And this is from Vance, which would mean were expecting a different announcement from Letitia James tomorrow, right?

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    Deutsche Bank *has complied*, providing extensive documents and other materials.

    Interesting. And well ahead of the Friday news drop.

  17. 17.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Baud: Well, this should be fun. Though we don’t know for sure that tomorrow’s James announcement will be about Trump.

  18. 18.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: Boy, I saw “orifice” and thought, well, it’s B-J After Dark, after all. Time for some shut-eye, I guess. Young grandchildren can tire you out.

  23. 23.

    dr. bloor

    @Baud:

    Deutsche Bank is a relentlessly, remorselessly bad actor.  There is no reason to assume a priori that the documents they produced are complete or unaltered.

  25. 25.

    Anya

    I don’t have much faith in Cyrus Vance. He let Don Jr. and Ivanka get away with their criminality. I just don’t trust him.

    How Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr., Avoided a Criminal Indictment

    Kasowitz, who by then had been the elder Donald Trump’s attorney for a decade, is primarily a civil litigator, with little experience in criminal matters. But, in 2012, Kasowitz donated twenty-five thousand dollars to the reëlection campaign of the Manhattan District Attorney, Cyrus Vance, Jr., making Kasowitz one of Vance’s largest donors. Kasowitz decided to bypass the lower-level prosecutors and went directly to Vance to ask that the investigation be dropped.

    On May 16, 2012, Kasowitz visited Vance’s office at One Hogan Place, in downtown Manhattan—a faded edifice made famous by the television show “Law & Order.” Dan Alonso, the Chief Assistant District Attorney, and Adam Kaufmann, the chief of the investigative division, were also at the meeting, but no one from the Major Economic Crimes Bureau attended. Kasowitz did not introduce any new arguments or facts during his session. He simply repeated the arguments that the other defense lawyers had been making for months.

    Ultimately, Vance overruled his own prosecutors. Three months after the meeting, he told them to drop the case. Kasowitz subsequently boasted to colleagues about representing the Trump children, according to two people. He said that the case was “really dangerous,” one person said, and that it was “amazing I got them off.” (Kasowitz denied making such a statement.)

  26. 26.

    bbleh

    Am interested to see several comments early in the thread casting aspersions on Vance, the investigation, related investigations, etc.

    Were I of a more paranoid, right-ist mindset, I might even begin to wonder who was posting them.

    But why let it spoil the party?

  28. 28.

    Anya

    @Nicole: beat me to it. I’ve literally went door to door canvasing for his opponent him based on that but my fellow Manhattanites decided to vote for his corrupt ass.

  30. 30.

    catclub

    I have previously wondered why Trump would bother to pay on ANY loan while he is president.  What are they going to do, foreclose on the president?  They can write off the losses to goodwill.

     

    This puts a different spin on why he might pay on loans.

  32. 32.

    Anya

    @Yutsano: Do you think he’s dumb enough to commit tax fraud in recent years? Some of the tax crimes might be out of reach. One of the talking heads mentioned that the federal tax statute of limitations runs three years from filling but you know better.

  34. 34.

    grumbles

    @bbleh:

     

    Oh, Vance Jr. is… morally flexible, at the very least. I don’t blame you for not trusting Some Guy on the Internet, but do suggest you google around – he’s been credibly accused of letting the connected off on multiple occasions going back quite a bit and some other pretty smelly stuff, basically going all the way back to the day he was sworn in.

    (I’m a former New Yorker, he pisses me off. But if he puts Don and the Gang on spits, more power to him.)

  36. 36.

    Anya

    It’s weird that these days any time you post something not so positive about one of ours someone will accuse you of being a Russian bot or a right wing troll. God god, people, we’re democrats! We call out our bad eggs.

  38. 38.

    Just Chuck

    @dr. bloor: Missing documents tend to create their own attention if they would have been an obvious part of the dump.  And altering them would take vast amounts of effort, probably leave trails, and rain hellish torrents of fire and damnation on whomever did it when they got caught.

    No, they’re counting on it being lost in the noise of the ongoing spree of crimes against humanity.  As I said earlier, they’re probably right in that strategy.  Every day is Friday now.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @dr. bloor:

    it’s remarkable to me that this bank continues to function as the preferred  launderer/lender for white collar crime year after year and no one seems to have any ability at all to rein them in or shut them down

  40. 40.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Before everyone says it’s over, do note this.

    criminal charges could be hard to prove. Valuing real estate assets involves subjective estimates and other assumptions, making it difficult to prove that someone intended to commit fraud.

    The whole problem with Trump is he acts guilty all the time because he’s an idiot.

  42. 42.

    Anya

    @Baud: Dumb question. Let me rephrase the question. Do you think he lacks survival skills that he’ll commit tax fraud while seeking maga attention at the national level?

  48. 48.

    Kay

    @Just Chuck:

    “ well will you look at that- once again the paper trail leads us…to the same bank!”

    Seems like they could just start at the bank and save time – just seize all the docs and return those that don’t pertain to criminal activities – that one file

  49. 49.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Kay: Seems like a reasonable guess.

    I’m not sure what they’d nail Trump for in State charges. But getting one of the large Republicans stand-ins? Sure.

  50. 50.

    Just Chuck

    @Kay: Would make a fun party game to imagine what that one file would be.  Even their coffee-and-donuts fund is probably laundering money for mobsters.

  51. 51.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I would love something to come out about former SCOTUS Justice Anthony Kennedy and his son — something bad enough that it would delegitimise and reverse Kavanaugh’s appointment. (I don’t even know if that’s possible or if there’s a mechanism to do so short of impeachment, but that’s what I want.)

  52. 52.

    Another Scott

    I haven’t been paying all that much attention, but haven’t we known that DB has been cooperating with NY for quite a while? Like months? https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/24/politics/deutsche-bank-trump-records/index.html (April 2019).

    It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

    Kinda-sorta related, BlueVirginia.US:

    Did you get a letter with a prefilled absentee ballot application? Did you happen to look at the prepaid return envelope? Notice something wrong with the destination address?

    Today, tens of thousands of voters received a mailer from the Center for Voter Information, a nonpartisan 501c4 organization, encouraging them to request an absentee ballot for the General Election. Unfortunately, as many (many) people noticed, the destination address for the prepaid return envelope was for the wrong jurisdiction. And this all comes down to the fact that some jurisdictions have the same name as another, just one is a county and one is an independent city.

    We all know that non-Virginians often don’t know that we have independent cities that are distinct from counties; they have their own elected officials, government buildings, and yes, even General Registrars. And this carries over to national organizations, printers, and mail vendors. For most jurisdictions, the name of the independent city isn’t the same name as a county. But for some, including Fairfax2, it is. This is where the problem with the CVI letter stems from.

    […]

    Getting the paperwork right, in banking, in paying taxes, and in voting, is important. Anyone getting an application for remote voting of any sort, please check the paperwork for accuracy!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  53. 53.

    ruemara

    @SiubhanDuinne: Since we are in new territories of corruption & sedition, we’re going to have to demand and develop new laws & policies. I see no reason for conservatives to have that USSC seat.

  56. 56.

    billcinsd

    @Mike in NC: I think you would need to replace the lime juice with fine Kentucky  bourbon, so vodka, bourbon and ginger beer in an aluminum vessel

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @catclub:

    Who is saying that he actually is paying? DB may be just waiting it’s time. Who knows the structure of the loans and the repayment agreement? If they disregarded the stated collateral value regularly and to as much as 70% why were they making the loans in the first place? They seemed to be the only bank lending to him. And why was a moron stating that he was worth 12-13 billion borrowing money? (We know that DB wasn’t the only entity being told massively over valued valuations)

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    My understanding is that it’s not just all of DB but only one branch  in Germany that has written him the loans.

    I don’t remember where I read that so have no way to confirm or find it again. But I remember it because it seemed strange.

  63. 63.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Just Chuck: Yeah, I did just fall off the turnip truck.

    Jesus, is it possible to just wait and see without expecting the best or the worst?

  64. 64.

    Just Chuck

    @Another Scott: JFC that’s absurd.  There should be one return address per state for this sort of thing.   One might think it was this fucked up on purpose.

  65. 65.

    Kent

    @dr. bloor: Deutsche Bank is a relentlessly, remorselessly bad actor.  There is no reason to assume a priori that the documents they produced are complete or unaltered.

    Yes, but they are also corporation that wants to continue to business in the US past the end of the Trump administration.  I’m not sure committing ongoing fraud on behalf of Trump is the best way to do that.  It is very good way to land your executives in prison.

  66. 66.

    AM in NC

    @Another Scott: I got one of those in NC today, but the address for our county Board of Elections on the return envelope is correct.  Looks like the original mailer was sent from PA (or that’s where the postage paid permit is from) – the return address says Raleigh NC.  Makes me really curious to know who these people are.

  67. 67.

    Just Chuck

    @Omnes Omnibus: It’s not like our bad karma waves are going to affect the outcome.  Show me anything from which to have an expectation of a different result.  I have to go all the way back to BCCI for that.

  68. 68.

    The Moar You Know

    Whatever records the Manhattan prosecutors obtain are subject to grand jury secrecy rules and might never become public unless the district attorney’s office brings charges and introduces the documents as evidence at a trial.

    Vance. Yeah. I think I can see how this is going to go.

  69. 69.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT· 1h
    Letter that Cohen’s new lawyer filed with the court says he has an offer from a super PAC to consult and do media appearances. There’s a narrow universe of what super PACs would be hiring Cohen, although it doesn’t name which one. H/t @BenWeiserNYT

    Yes, that would be former trump fixer and bagman Michael Cohen. A SuperPAC wants to hire him to go on TeeVee. Maybe gainful employment is part of his home confinement deal?

  70. 70.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Just Chuck: No, your bad karma waves aren’t going to affect anything, but they’re a fucking depressing read.  Show me where I said anything about hope.  OTOH cynicism is going to be the death of us.  YMMV.

  71. 71.

    kindness

    Trump wishes the bricks he’s shitting were gold.  I doubt we find out much until charges are filed though.  Vance has some integrity unlike AG Barr.

  72. 72.

    Just Chuck

    @Omnes Omnibus: Gee I thought the fucking planned genocide of blue states might be the death of us.  That puts me in a wee bit of a sour mood.  Go fucking pie me, I’m in no mood for your fucking scolding.

  73. 73.

    sdhays

    I’ll just note that to those who are skeptical of Vance (and you’re absolutely justified), I think he’s a weathervane, for better or worse. When protecting Harvey Weinstein was no longer tenable – to the point that it might shape up into something that would cost him his job – shit got done. Dump has run away from NYC because he has no friends there, so the cost to Vance now in going after him is personally minimal and could potentially make him very popular after some rough years. White collar crime is too legal in this country (possibly every country) so it may be that even mountains of evidence don’t arrive at the threshold for an indictment, but I don’t think Vance is going to bury this if he actually finds something.

    And if the investigation is this far along that they’re enforcing a subpoena on DB, it seems pretty unlikely that they’re not going to find some very….interesting things there.

  75. 75.

    jonas

    Not being a real estate finance guy, I’m a little unclear on something. What is it, exactly, that DB is suspected of doing here? They evidently continued to loan the Trump Org money even after every other institution blacklisted him. Why? Were they just stupid or desperate? Or did they charge him a bunch of exorbitant fees/interest rates that boosted their bottom line despite the risk? Were they using loans to Trump to launder shady Russian/Chinese/Arab money? Or were they brokers of sorts, directing high net-worth private banking clients around the world to Trump properties as a way of sheltering assets/laundering money? Anyone have a nickel summary?

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @sdhays: and could potentially make him very popular after some rough years.

    that’s what I’m thinking, whatever’s he’s done in the past, when trump was a gameshow host and going after his children for some obscure, low-grade real-estate scam, if Vance has any ambition beyond his current job, trump’s figurative head on his wall would be a helluva backdrop for campaign interviews

  77. 77.

    Just Chuck

    @jonas:

    Or were they brokers of sorts, directing high net-worth private banking clients around the world to Trump properties as a way of sheltering assets/laundering money?

    Winner winner chicken dinner.  And those clients were most likely also the shady sorts from the previous sentence.  We’ll never really know til the dust settles tho.

  78. 78.

    Yutsano

    Everyone who thinks nothing is going to happen here: Deutsche Bank has already been rapped on the nose once. They’re also possibly about to collapse. They’re going to gain nothing by being obstructionist here. And obstruction could be their death knell.

  83. 83.

    sdhays

    @Yutsano: Didn’t Dump’s legal team have some dubious litigation still ongoing that they could have hidden behind to delay a bit longer if they had wanted to?

  85. 85.

    joel hanes

    Yashar Ali says three sources have told him that AG James’s press conference is not about Deutsche Bank or Trump, but is instead about the NRA.

     

    In short, Kay is right again.

  88. 88.

    Mike in DC

    @joel hanes:

    She has been investigating them.  I’d assume that some kind of criminal indictment(s) are forthcoming, or at least a formal, full blown civil suit against them by the state of NY.

     

    In a perfect world DA Vance indicts Trump on the eve of one of the debates.

  89. 89.

    SFAW

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Cool.  Everyone is pre-disappointed.  How savvy.

    Which is cooler/”savvier”: being “pre-disappointed,” or looking down one’s nose at the so-called “pre-disappointed”?

    Since I’m not particularly cool or “savvy,” I guess I’ll just wait to see if anything significant comes from this. Considering how many times we’ve heard how some new, shocking/disturbing* piece of information (potentially) exposes Trumpian criming/corruption, which ends up going nowhere (in terms of practical result), I’m not going out and buying popcorn just yet.

    * “shocking/disturbing” with respect to previous norms, that is.

  90. 90.

    SFAW

    @Mike in DC:

    In a perfect world DA Vance indicts Trump on the eve of one of the debates.

    Unfortunately, in Barr World, we’ll get the Murderer-in-Chief’s jowly consigliere releasing a Durham report in mid-October, said report stating that not only did Joe Biden something something Ukraine corruption mumble, but that Biden also taught the 9/11 hijackers how to fly jetliners into skyscrapers and office buildings.

  91. 91.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @SFAW: I don’t think Barr will risk the blowback of going after Biden or Obama, but I think harassing John Brennan, and maybe others at that level or just below, has been the goal all along. Maybe they’ll go after Comey.

  93. 93.

    SFAW

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    What blowback? [Serious question.] There might be some from confirmed Dems — who are already going to vote for Biden — but that’s not who he’d be aiming at. Unless the electorate has become somewhat more mature/intelligent recently (which I guess is possible, and that I’m misreading it), the “swing voters” would probably react as they did re: “but her e-mails!

    ETA: I don’t necessarily think his/Durham’s bullshit “investigation” will have the same effect as Comey did in 2016, but I’m still worried. [Because that’s one of the things that I do.]

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    DeutcheBank is chartered and regulated in Germany. Merkel and her Finance minister have leverage, as the bank has legal exposure in several areas. They may have put their foot down. Trump is a menace to Germany as well as the U.S.

  95. 95.

    ET

    When does DB decide that tRump et all have caused them so much trouble that they won’t lend to them anymore? Or are they in so deep they can’t not lend to him anymore?

  97. 97.

    Pragmatic Idealist

    Not that hard to prove when there are simultaneous contradictory statements.

  98. 98.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mike in NC: Can we rebrand it the Moscow Mitch?

    Diiferent drink. A Moscow Mitch is a Moscow Mule with the lime juice replaced with elephant piss and the ginger beer with brown bear diarrhea. Na zdravye!

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