Tuesday, March 19, 2019

The Corruption of Trump: Bank Fraud

One of the reasons Michael Cohen is going to jail is that he misrepresented assets on bank loan applications.  Apparently, according to the latest from the newspaper of record, the New York Times, MacOrange did the same thing, repeatedly. He's not going to jail, yet; he is still the occupant of the Very White House. Don 'Veto' Trumpillini has a long and troubled history with a troubled bank, Deutsche Bank. Their symbiotic relationship was born of need: Trump needed funds to build his empire, the bank wanted to leverage its investment bank business and use the brand's caché to do so. It had a ravenous appetite for risk. According to the Times, "with the support of two different chief executives, the bank handed money—a total of well over $2 billion—to a man whom nearly all other banks had deemed untouchable". The Trump casino bankruptcies had cost Wall Street millions. Contrary to the marginal business scenario put forward by a bank that to wants desperately to distance itself from Hair Further, he was a notorious customer. Now, the New York Attorney General wants to use that paper trail to expose the inner workings of the corrupt empire known as the "the Trump Organization".

Individual I is alleged to have overstated his wealth by $2.2 million when he applied for a loan to build Chicago's Trump Hotel and Tower.  Nevertheless, the bank loaned him $500 million.  When the deal went bad in 2008, Trumpilini had the audacity to sue Deutsche Bank under the contract force majuere clause, essentially claiming the Great Recession was "an Act of God", for $3 billion in damages.  The bank countersued for $40 million, the part of the loan guaranteed by the King of Debt's personal assets. They eventually settled the case in 2010 with Trumpilini agreeing to pay most of what he owed by 2012.  Five years later however, bank accountants found that he again overstated his assets by as much as 70% when he wanted to borrow $100 million to purchase the Doral golf course. Given his negative performance on the Chicago loan, bank executives wanted to decline the business, but his loan application made its way up the corporate ladder and eventually it was approved by Josef Ackermann, the bank's chief executive. Trumpilini gave the bank his business in return for the capital.  One of his Deutsche investment accounts was reported in 2016 to contain $46 million in stocks and bonds.

Other problematic loans followed, to the point internal bank documents were red flagging business with Donald Trump, but because he had established a relationship with an influential private banker, Rosemary Vrabilic, who had a close relationship with another bank CEO, Anshu Jain, these loans went through without adequate review by senior executives. Eventually bank executives called a halt and refused to finance his Scotland golf resort. Once Trumpilini got into public office the bank performed a reputation risk review and issued a report. According to the Times, the report concluded that executives in the private-banking division were so determined to win business from big-name clients that they had ignored Mr. Trump’s reputation for demagogy and defaults. Next month the bank expects to begin handing over documents to Congress. Ms. Vrabilic expects to be called to publicly testify about her dealings with the King of Debt. Meanwhile Michael Cohen has time in prison to contemplate the error of his ways: “What we have learned today is that the president committed bank fraud by submitting a false loan application to Deutsche Bank,” Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-MO) told reporters after Cohen’s testimony.