Trump’s warning unlikely to stop Mueller looking into family’s finances
President Donald Trump’s growing anxiety about the federal Russia probe has spilled into public view with his warning that special counsel Robert Mueller would be out of bounds if he dug into the Trump family’s finances. But that’s a line that Mueller seems sure to cross.
Several of Trump’s family members and close advisers have already become ensnared in the investigations, including son Donald Trump Jnr and son- in- law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner.
Probing the family’s sprawling business ties would bring an investigation the President has called a parti- san “witch hunt” even closer to the Oval Office.
Trump told the New York Times it would be a “violation” of Mueller’s formal charge if he looked into the President’s personal finances.
That comment came amid news reports that the special counsel i s interested in Trump’s business transactions with Russians and with one of his main lenders, Deutsche Bank.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said yesterday that Trump had no intention of firing Mueller “at this time”, but she did not rule out him doing so in the future. She also reiterated Trump’s concern about the scope of Mueller’s investigation, saying it “should stay in the confines of meddling, Russia meddling, and the election and nothing beyond that”.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said Mueller had the authority to investigate any ties the Trump family has to Russia, “including financial, and anything that arises”.
William Jeffress, a longtime defence attorney at Baker Botts who represented former President Richard Nixon, said Mueller’s inquiry will almost certainly involve examining financial information as he looks for any connections between Trump associates and Russia. And he said Trump’s threats toward Mueller aren’t helping his case.
“If I were his lawyer, I would be telling him to dial it down,” Jeffress said.
The White House push against the special counsel’s probe comes as the outlines of the investigation are beginning to become clearer.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that Mueller’s investigators are looking into Trump business transactions with Russians including apartment purchases in his buildings, a controversial New York development project, the multimillion- dollar sale of a Florida home and the 2013 Miss Universe pageant held in Moscow.
The Times also reported that federal investigators have been in talks with Deutsche Bank about obtaining records related to his finances, and that the bank expects it will have to provide information to Mueller.
Deutsche Bank has been one of the few major institutions willing to regularly lend to Trump, who alienated large banks in New York with his past financial troubles and confrontational behaviour as a borrower. Over the years, the bank’s cumulative loans to Trump add up to billions, and loans originally worth US$ 300 million ($ 404.4m) remain outstanding.
Democrats have seized on Trump’s relationship with the bank. Maxine Waters of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, has called for the Treasury Department to turn over any documents related to the relationship between the bank and Trump or his family members.
Trump has denied having any financial dealings with Russia, though the spotlight on his business connections there has intensified since the revelation that a meeting between members of the Trump’s campaign’s inner circle and a Russian lawyer was brokered by a wealthy family involved in Trump’s 2013 Miss Universe contest in Moscow.
Trump Jnr, Kushner and former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who all attended the meeting, are being called before Senate committees next week to talk about the 2016 campaign. They will almost certainly face questions about their attendance at the June 2016 meeting arranged via emails that advertised it would reveal damaging information about Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.