Lawrence O'Donnell: Source says Russian oligarchs co-signed Trump's Deutsche Bank loans

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MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell says he has a source who told him Russian oligarchs signed off loans given to President Trump by Deutsche Bank.

Lawyers for the German lender told a federal appeals court Tuesday that the bank has documents sought by Democrat-led House committees, which subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and Capital One for financial records related to Trump, his family, and businesses, but declined to reveal if they have Trump's tax returns.

While the New York Times reports Deutsche Bank, which has done business with Trump for two decades, does have some of Trump's personal and corporate tax returns, O'Donnell told colleague Rachel Maddow in the hand-off between their shows Tuesday evening he can go a bit further.

"This single source close to Deutsche Bank has told me that the Trump — Donald Trump's loan documents there show that he has co-signers. That's how he was able to obtain those loans. And that the co-signers are Russian oligarchs," he said.

"That would explain, it seems to me, every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin, if true, and I stress the 'if true' part of this," O'Donnell added.

O'Donnell later said this source told him that Trump's tax returns reveal "he pays little to no income tax in some years."

He added that his source said Trump, a longtime real estate businessman, would not have been able to obtain his loans with Deutsche Bank without these co-signers he described as "Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin."

"If true," O'Donnell said, "that would explain every kind word Donald Trump has ever said about Russia and Vladimir Putin. If true. If true, that would be a significant factor in Vladimir Putin's publicly stated preference for presidential candidate Donald Trump over presidential candidate Hillary Clinton."

dokikod on August 28th, 2019 at 04:02 UTC »

Don't forget Trump lost a billion dollars in a decade. He filed 6 bankruptcies. No bank in America would touch him with a 10 foot poll. He needed Russian oligarchs to co-sign. His two adult sons, Dumb and Dumber, admitted they had money pouring in from Russia. I wonder if we'll find out why Justice Kennedy's son granted Trump a billion dollar loan and then last year Kennedy abruptly announces his retirement from SCOTUS.

slakmehl on August 28th, 2019 at 03:32 UTC »

The relevant clip.

The source says that Deutsche Bank is in possession of loan documents that show Donald Trump has obtained loans with co-signers, and that he would not have been able to obtain loans without cosigners. The source says that the cosigners...are Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.

First, a word of caution:

This is a single source inside Deutsche Bank.

That source has not been vetted by anyone other than O'Donnell's team at MSNBC.

If loans co-signed by oligarchs actually exist, the FBI has known about them for a while, certainly since Mueller subpoenaed DB in December 2017. It's difficult to understand how it would be appropriate to conclude the Mueller investigation without some explication of these relationships.

It's too perfect. Billionaire oligarchs personally co-signing loans? Really?

This is not the same as a report from WaPo corroborated by NYT and half a dozen other outlets. Skepticism is warranted. The very sharp Marcy Wheeler, for example, is skeptical. Ok, now that's out of the way:

This would explain everything. Most notably...

Why Deutsche Bank, Trump's Last Lender, Kept Lending through Repeated Defaults - Since the late 2000s, DB was the last western bank willing to bankroll him, which was especially strange in light of his history specifically with stiffing Deutsche Bank and suing them in court. No one knows why they were willing to repeatedly accept the considerable risk Trump entailed, but given Deutsche's prolific history of Russian money laundering, the big question was whether those loans were being backstopped through other sources.

Trump's Bizarre Golf-Heavy Spending Spree - From 2006-2015, Trump Org went on a mysterious all-cash spending spree. The biggest purchases were in 2010-2014, precisely aligning with Deutsche's heaviest period of Russian money laundering, and precisely the time that Eric Trump contemporaneously explained to golf writer that all of their financing was coming from Russia.

I said, ‘Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks—because of the recession, the Great Recession—have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.’ And this is what he said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’

Deutsche Bank's Freakout When Trump wins Election - Right before the election, Trump was predictably having a hard time with the scottish golf courses (which were objectively awful investments that continue to lose money) and needed a bailout. This is when Deutsche Bank appears to have finally realized the gravity of the situation, and denied his loan request, even though it was to just be an extension of loans for his (at the time, profitable) Doral property. Then when he actually won and Russia's election assistance was revealed, they raced to unload a considerable $600 million loan to VTB (the originally planned financier for Trump Tower Moscow). The loan had no documented purpose in DB's records.

Trump's Subordination to Putin: "Sistema" - There is some explanation for why Trump's sycophancy towards Vladimir Putin, most egregiously in Helsinki last year. There is some explanation for why he insists on periodic, private meetings where he destroys all records of what was discussed afterwards. Nervousness over conspiracy in the election was always a plausible explanation, but never the most likely. More plausible is simply that Trump unwittingly bumbled himself into becoming part of the Russian "Sistema", the structure by which Russian oligarchs are forced to stay in line (and subservient to Putin) because they all understand thay they have mutually benefited from criminal activity, and can be destroyed by it's exposure. As described by the New Yorker's Adam Davidson in A Theory of Trump Kompromat:

Each actor in sistema faces near-constant uncertainty about his status, aware that others could well destroy him. Each actor also knows how to use kompromat to destroy rivals but fears that using such material might provoke an explosive response. While each person in sistema feels near-constant uncertainty, the over-all sistema is remarkably robust. Kompromat is most powerful when it isn’t used, and when its targets aren’t quite clear about how much destructive information there is out there. If everyone sees potential land mines everywhere, it dramatically increases the price for anybody stepping out of line.

If Trump aided in Russian money-laundering or bribery, he would be guilty of Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) violations. These are notoriously difficult to prosecute without a paper trail. However, if such a trail exists, it is almost certainly accessible to Vladimir Putin.

ToadProphet on August 28th, 2019 at 03:32 UTC »

Well holy shit.

Ok, disclaimer - this is based on one source who O'Donnell talked to, apparently. And this seems too damn stupid even for Trump - having a Russian oligarch cosign a loan and then run for president.

BUT - I would have thought the source is likely Tim O'Brien who is a regular on O'Donnell's show and has seen Trump's returns, but he said it was a "source close to Deutsche Bank".

AND this would explain everything. Absolutely everything we've all wondered about. I really hope there's some more reporting on this, but from the standpoint of water it makes sense.

AND holy shit.