Donald Trump talks to reporters outside the White House in April.
Win McNamee/Getty Images
Of all the investigations into his dubious behavior, the one that most sets Donald Trump’s hair on fire involves Deutsche Bank. The German lender is famous for being the only institution that would loan the ex-real-estate developer money while everyone else treated him like the pariah he was, and presumably knows more about his finances than anyone outside the Trump Organization. Earlier this week, the president, his company, and his three eldest children sued Deutsche (and Capital One) in an effort to stop the banks from responding to congressional subpoenas, and a new report from Bloomberg hints at why Trump seems particularly antsy about the idea of Germans telling Democrats everything they know: in addition to decades’ worth of information concerning his financial transactions, some people inside the firm have actually seen his elusive tax returns.
Per Bloomberg, in 2012, the Trump Organization was trying to obtain loans from the bank for the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Florida and the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago. In the wake of the financial crisis, Trump had defaulted on a loan from the bank for the Chicago property, and in an absurd move even for him, filed a lawsuit against Deutsche, claiming it had caused the global financial crisis and “engaged in predatory lending against him.” (The bank promptly countersued, and the case was eventually settled.) Having been burned by the bankruptcy king in the past, Deutsche initially balked at the idea of lending the Trump Organization its requested $100 million, at which point Ivanka Trump, the point person on the discussions, suggested her father would guarantee the loans with his personal assets.
That got Deutsche listening, but it insisted on performing due diligence first. And because Trump’s tax returns apparently contain information on par with the Pentagon Papers, their appraisal was carried out in a slightly unorthodox fashion. According to Bloomberg, the bank sent a team to the office of the Trump Organization’s chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, who “allowed the bankers to see relevant parts of Trump’s tax returns and take notes.” However, the bankers “weren’t allowed to make copies” of any of the records to take with them. It’s almost as though the returns contain information that might make Trump look bad!
While Democrats have requested that the Internal Revenue Service turn over the president’s filings, thus far their efforts have been rebuffed by loyal stooge Steven Mnuchin, who appears prepared to swallow six years’ worth of tax documents before letting lawmakers get their hands on them. As Bloomberg notes, “even if the I.R.S. is not forthcoming with the presidential tax returns, House Democrats might get key information from bankers’ notes if their subpoena of Deutsche Bank is ultimately successful.”
Last month, a lengthy story by reporter David Enrich shed some light on the long, occasionally fraught relationship between Trump and the German bank, whose “ravenous appetite for risk” translated to happily lending money to the former real-estate developer when no one else on Wall Street would, and going along with his vast financial lies. For instance, in 2004, Trump asked the bank’s commercial real-estate group to lend him more than $500 million to build his 92-story skyscraper in Chicago; it did, but not before employees concluded he was majorly inflating his net worth, and were told he’d “worked with people in the construction industry connected to organized crime.” Ten years later, when Trump was trying to buy the Buffalo Bills and needed to prove he could pull off a transaction that could exceed $1 billion, the bank agreed to vouch that his net worth was $8.7 billion—a number his former fixer, Michael Cohen, told lawmakers was a wild exaggeration.
On Thursday, congressional Democrats agreed to postpone their deadline for Deutsche and Capital One to respond with the requested information until after Judge Edgardo Ramos rules on Trump’s suit. The hearing is set for May 22, so expect plenty of unhinged ravings between now and then!
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Travis Kalanick will not be ringing the opening bell when the company he co-founded goes public
No hard feelings, it’s just that management doesn’t want people thinking of discrimination, sexual harassment, fights with drivers, verbal abuse, and software tools to evade law enforcement when they think of Uber:
As a former C.E.O. and current board member, Mr. Kalanick had asked to take part in the hallowed New York Stock Exchange tradition of ringing the opening bell on May 10, the day Uber shares are slated to begin trading. He also wanted to bring his father, Donald Kalanick. It would be close to the second anniversary of the accidental death of Travis Kalanick’s mother, and of the dramatic boardroom coup that ousted him as boss. His presence on the exchange’s iconic balcony could make both Mr. Kalanick and the corporation appear resilient.
[Dara] Khosrowshahi wasn’t having it. The original plan was to fill the rafters with Uber’s earliest employees and longest-tenured drivers. Moreover, some people at the top of the company felt that Mr. Kalanick was still a toxic liability, and that Uber should keep him at maximum distance as it tried to convince constituents that employees truly abided by a new motto: “Do the right thing. Period.” Mr. Kalanick’s appearance would unavoidably rekindle public memories of just how much of a disaster his final year was.
Still, Kalanick will probably recover from the offense, or if not, will have a truckload of money to comfort him when he thinks about it and feels sad; according to The New York Times, he’s set to make $5.9 billion on paper when Uber goes public.
John Kelly finds new work
He’s parlayed the skills he honed as chief of staff into a more lucrative though equally evil gig. Per CBS News:
In April, protesters outside the nation’s largest facility for unaccompanied migrant children noticed a familiar face enter the massive, fenced site in Homestead, Florida: former White House chief of staff John Kelly. Soon after, a local television station recorded footage of him riding on the back of a golf cart as he toured the grounds. It wasn’t clear why he was there, but Friday, Caliburn International confirmed to CBS News that Kelly had joined its board of directors. Caliburn is the parent company of Comprehensive Health Services, which operates Homestead and three other shelters for unaccompanied migrant children in Texas.
In the past year, Comprehensive Health Services, the only private company operating shelters, became one of the most dominant players in the industry. Last August, it secured three licenses for facilities in Texas, totaling 500 beds, and in December, the Homestead facility began expanding from a capacity of 1,250 beds to 3,200. Located on several acres of federal land adjacent to an Air Reserve Base, the facility is the nation’s only site not subject to routine inspections by state child-welfare experts. . . . Prior to joining the Trump administration in January 2017, Kelly had been on the board of advisers of DC Capital Partners, an investment firm that now owns Caliburn.
Perhaps free agent Kirstjen Nielsen can join him!
Just two good buddies, havin’ a chat
Elsewhere!
Unemployment Rate Hits 50-Year Low, Yet Wage Growth Stays Tepid (Intelligencer)
Pence Urges Fed to Consider Rate Cut After Robust Jobs Report (W.S.J.)
Buffett’s 2,472,627 Percent Return Fueled Berkshire Billionaire Families (Bloomberg)
Jack Dorsey Is Gwyneth Paltrow for Silicon Valley (N.Y.T.)
Strategist Who Called Bitcoin Crash Says It’s Time to Buy Crypto (Bloomberg)
Uber floors Travis Kalanick on I.P.O. day (Axios)
How a 97-Year-Old Chicago Man Wins the Kentucky Derby Every Year (Bloomberg)
There’s a secretive tech fund inside Goldman Sachs transforming the bank and returning 25 percent a year (CNBC)
Tax cuts could be a curse for U.S. companies (Axios)
Crash-test dummies launched from New Jersey roller coaster to hotel roof (U.P.I.)