California bank has Trump 'over a barrel' after repeated bailouts: report

A California bank, along with its largest individual shareholder, has doled out over $500 million in financing that has benefited Donald Trump by helping him pay off debts and even helped him make a profit off a lease on his cash-strapped former Washington hotel.

Axos Bank and California billionaire Don Hankey have also helped Trump cover the $175 million bond on his civil fraud judgement, the Associated Press reported this Friday.

Since Trump is running for president, ethics watchdogs wonder if the bank and Hankey will ask for anything in return if Trump is elected.

"If the guy gets back in the White House, they've got him over a barrel," former ethics lawyer Richard Painter said.

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As the AP points out, the Securities and Exchange Commission previously investigated Axos Bank after a whistleblower accused the bank of money laundering, but once Trump became president in 2017, the investigation was closed after the claims were settled out of court.

Hankey has also come under scrutiny. In 2015, one of his companies was forced to pay $48 million in penalties and compensation after an Obama-era agency found it used illegal debt collection tactics. His company, Westlake Services, also paid $700,000 to settle a 2017 Justice Department lawsuit accusing the company of illegally repossessing vehicles owned by members of the U.S. military.

Hankey, who donated $80,000 to Trump and the GOP in 2016, claims politics played no role in his decision to help Trump.

"I'm chairman of the board of several companies, and we just carry on our business and we try to stay away from political issues or taking sides," Hankey said in a previous statement.

But according to CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, there are "multiple layers of questions about what is Hankey's relationship to Trump and to others in Trump's orbit."

"What are his interests? How might Trump favor his interests? How might others?" Eisen said.