Waters: Deutsche Bank providing Trump financial records for House probe

The chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee said Tuesday that Deutsche Bank has begun providing records of its dealings with President Trump for the panel’s probe into the president’s finances.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that Deutsche Bank has begun cooperating with an investigation into its extensive history with Trump, who borrowed millions of dollars from the bank over several decades.

When asked Tuesday at the Capitol if Deutsche Bank had started to hand over records of it financial relationship with Trump, Waters replied, “Yes.”

The chairwoman also said she was satisfied with Deutsche Bank’s cooperation with the probe and that the Financial Services panel is looking into “everything” regarding Trump’s dealings with the bank.

Waters and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, are investigating the president’s finances through his ties to Deutsche Bank. The German bank was one of the few financial institutions willing to lend to Trump when others wouldn’t deal with him, often using unconventional methods.

The New York Times reported earlier this month that Trump allegedly inflated the value of his assets when applying for loans from Deutsche Bank and used loans from one division of the company to pay off debts to the other.

The dual probe is also focused on potential financial crimes committed by Deutsche Bank, which has paid billions of dollars in fines to settle allegations of money laundering, sanctions violations, market manipulation and risky sales practices.

The Justice Department in 2017 fined Deutsche Bank $630 million for laundering money out of Russia, which some Democrats tied to concerns about collusion between Trump and the Kremlin.

Waters’s comments are the latest signal that House Democrats plan to investigate the president’s finances even though Attorney General William Barr said Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller concluded that neither Trump nor anyone involved in his presidential campaign conspired with Russia to sway the 2016 election in his favor.

Deutsche Bank had rebuffed Waters’s requests for Trump’s financial records throughout 2017 and 2018, when Democrats were the minority party in the House. But the bank said it would cooperate with Waters’s investigation after Democrats captured the House majority in the November midterm elections.

Waters said Tuesday that she was satisfied with Deutsche Bank’s cooperation with the probe so far.

The chairwoman in February called on Congress to step up scrutiny of Trump’s finances after Michael Cohen, the president’s former attorney, accused the president of misleading tax officials and insurers about the value of his assets.

Republicans have rejected efforts to investigate the president through his connections to Deutsche Bank. But GOP lawmakers, including Financial Services panel ranking member Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), have pressed Deutsche Bank about alleged financial crimes unrelated to Trump.