Trump’s bank subpoenaed by prosecutors in criminal inquiry
NEW YORK >> The New York prosecutors who are seeking President Donald Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, a sign that their criminal investigation into 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 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.
The criminal investigation initially appeared to be focused on hush-money payments made in 2016 to two women who have said they had affairs with Trump.
But in a court filing this week, prosecutors with the district attorney’s office cited “public reports of possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization” and suggested that they were also investigating possible crimes involving bank and insurance fraud.
Because of its longstanding and multifaceted relationship with Trump, Deutsche Bank has been a frequent target of regulators and lawmakers digging into the president’s opaque finances. But the subpoena from the office of the district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., appears to be the first instance of a criminal inquiry involving Trump and his dealings with the German bank, which lent him and his company more than $2 billion over the past two decades.
Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided Vance’s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that 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 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.