Convincing President Trump to
release his tax returns is proving slightly more difficult than we initially
anticipated, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been any signs of success from
taking the longer route.
Take, for example, a 98-page
document recently released by the United States Office of Government Ethics.
The document, available in its
entirety here,
clearly shows that not only is Donald Trump outright profiting from the
presidency, a direct violation of the Emoluments Clause of the United
States Constitution but also that he is in debt to several banks, both domestic
and foreign.
Although
shocking news, none of this particularly comes as a surprise, more or less just
confirms what most of us already suspected. However, it’s when you delve into
the details that you discover the true significance of the President’s possible
under-the-table actions.
German-based Deutsche Bank was served
with $630 million in penalties back in January for a $10 billion Russian money laundering scheme involving
it’s Moscow and New York branches among others.
Deutsche Bank also gave Trump four questionable long-term “loans,” potentially Russian money that’s been handed to Trump, the final loan given just before the commencement of the presidential election and used to help fund the Trump International Hotel that opened in Washington DC last year.
Obviously, this interaction between
Trump and Deutsche Bank should raise more than just a few red flags, at least
confirming that there is a possibility that the Russians
laundered money to Trump as he began his campaign and just prior to hiring
senior advisors with ties to the Russian government.
Furthermore,
Deutsche Bank is gaining somewhat of a reputation for their shady business
dealings as well.
Not
only were they caught in the Russian laundering scheme, the bank also struck a
$7.2 billion deal with the US government last December to settle claims for toxic
mortgages they packaged and sold between 2005 and 2007, as well as
paying $2.5 billion in April 2015 to settle charges it conspired to manipulate global interest rate
benchmarks.
It’s interesting, yet not at all
surprising, how corrupt people and organizations just seem to gravitate toward
each other.
Author Tim
Abel is a former English teacher from Australia who currently
lives in Singapore and spends a lot of time traveling the world for his wife's
work. Besides covering political news for Addicting Info, he also writes his
own blog, drtanstravels.com