More financial background against which some of the Trump scandals will be examined. Trump’s financial adventures were enabled despite the massive risks (and failures). One can only imagine what other financial shenanigans were going on with capital flowing from Russians at that same time, considering a $630 million fine assessed to Deutsche Bank.
The relationship had paid off. Mr. Trump used loans from Deutsche Bank to finance skyscrapers and other high-end properties, and repeatedly cited his relationship with the bank to deflect political attacks on his business acumen. Deutsche Bank used Mr. Trump’s projects to build its investment-banking business, reaped fees from the assets he put in its custody and leveraged his celebrity to lure clients.
Then Mr. Trump won the 2016 election, and the German bank shifted into damage-control mode, bracing for an onslaught of public scrutiny, according to several people involved in the internal response.
In the weeks before Ms. Vrablic attended his swearing-in, the bank commissioned reports to figure out how it had gotten in so deep with Mr. Trump. It issued an unusual edict to its Wall Street employees: Do not publicly utter the word “Trump.”
www.nytimes.com/...
- Trump wooed one @DeutscheBank exec after another. He wrote a thank-you note to a banker's father. He dangled a Mar-a-Lago trip as a reward for a successful bond sale. He flew bankers on his helicopter and plane. He promised to put tens of millions in a DB brokerage account.
- Units of Deutsche *twice* stopped doing business with Trump after he defaulted. Both times, a different part of the bank quickly restarted the relationship – including after an internal fight about whether Trump was too toxic to work with.
- Deutsche Bank has been arguing that the Trump relationship was not a big deal for the bank or its executives. But two CEOs, Joe Ackermann and Anshu Jain, supported it. Jain had lunch with Trump (and his private banker) in Feb 2013 and discussed his finances.
- Since 2011, Rosemary Vrablic managed the Trump relationship at DB. Her superiors encouraged her to make large, complex loans. She made $300M+ to Trump.
- That’s how she ended up in the VIP area at @realDonaldTrump’s inauguration. (Photos:
A lot of this reporting - dozens and dozens of interviews - is for my forthcoming book on how @DeutscheBank became one of the world's most troubled, dangerous banks. Book info/pre-order here: