JUST IN: NY Attorney General Drops Tuesday Subpoenas

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The unprecedented scope of corruption in the Trump team and investigation into that corruption continues to grow. The New York state attorney general’s office has now reportedly subpoenaed Deutsche Bank and Investors Bank for records relating to the money behind five Trump projects including the failed push to buy the Buffalo Bills football team. Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen told Congress in recent public testimony that Donald Trump had artificially inflated his assets in financial dealings with banks, sparking new rounds of concern that the president is guilty of fraud. He specifically cited the Bills project and provided falsified statements he said he had submitted to Deutsche Bank.

Deutsche Bank has come under scrutiny thanks to its association with Trump before. They’ve been known as one of the only financial institutions who would even do business with the eventual president’s business at all at times, and reportedly felt the heat from that spotlight, considering restructuring loan terms involving the president to avoid the spectacle of having to collect on a sitting president.

Their issues don’t end with questioning whether or not to break with standards thanks to the pressure of a U.S. presidency, however. Late last year, German authorities raided the bank’s headquarters on the basis of suspicion that the organization was at least partially responsible for large amounts of money that the “Panama Papers” and “Offshore Leaks” had revealed had been funneled into offshore shell companies by some of the world’s richest people. Just last month, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said the bank should be investigated for involvement in possible money laundering involving the Trumps, too.

Trump is suspected of wrongdoing in the New York’s attorney general new case across some of his most high-profile properties, including D.C.’s Trump International Hotel, the Trump National Doral outside Miami, and the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, all of which the subpoena from Attorney General Letitia James covers. James’ office also sought records covering the Trump Park Avenue project from New Jersey’s Investors Bank. Altogether, the projects included hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from the institutions. James’ scrutiny — at this point at least — constitutes a civil and not a criminal investigation.

The concern comes after Cohen revealed to Congress that Trump had allegedly falsified his financial standing in dealings not just with the public, but with financial institutions as well. During a conversation with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), for instance, he specifically accused Trump of insurance and tax fraud. That’s in addition to the financial fraud he has proven that the president, Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization’s Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg were involved with in the form of the illegal hush money scheme targeting women with whom he’d had affairs.

James is a new face in the New York state attorney general’s office, and has firmly established her opposition to the president and her readiness to use whatever means are at her disposal to hold him accountable for wrongdoing. Trump has dismissed her, saying she does “little else but rant, rave & politic against me.”

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