Trump Was Denied a Loan While Running for Prez

This time, Deutsche Bank was nervous about it
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 2, 2019 2:30 PM CST
Trump Sought a Loan While Running for Prez
President Donald Trump listens during an event on human trafficking in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Friday, Feb. 1, 2019, in Washington.   (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

While running for president, Donald Trump reached out for a loan and got an unexpected answer—and that answer was "no," the New York Times reports. Trump made the request of Deutsche Bank in early 2016 while lending his campaign tens of millions and spending money to improve his various properties. According to unnamed Deutsche Bank officials, the bank's top brass hesitated to support such a polarizing candidate and feared having to seize assets from the US president should Trump win and default on his loan. The Trump Organization apparently wanted to borrow against its resort in Miami to pay for improvements at Trump Turnberry golf property in Scotland, but Trump rep Amanda Miller is pushing back against that detail.

"This story is absolutely false," she says. "We bought Trump Turnberry without any financing and put tens of millions of dollars of our own money into the renovation, which began in 2014." But she doesn't deny that the Trump Organization sought the loan. If true, the Times story shows that Trump was still running his business while running for president; it also chronicles his rocky relationship with the private German bank, which lent him a total of over $2.5 billion after his fortunes went south in the early 1990s. Congressional Democrats are already planning to investigate Deutsche Bank, per Politico, and NPR reported in November on German police raiding the bank over possible laundering of Russian money. (Rudy Giuliani recently talked about possible "collusion" between Russia and the Trump campaign.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X