Deutsche Bank execs repeatedly ignored major 'red flags' around Trump's shady finances: NYT

A major new report from the New York Times indicates that executives at Deutsche Bank saw major "red flags" surrounding President Donald Trump's financial dealings -- but they kept funding him anyway, in part because he helped bring prestige to their institution.

Among other things, Deutsche Bank employees flagged Trump for "wild" exaggerations of his personal wealth, as well as "a promised loan that relied on a banker's forged signature."

Included among the 20 sources cited in the Times include former Deutsche Bank employee Mike Offit, who was responsible for arranging Trump's first loans with the bank at a time when it was trying to make a splash in the United States.

The loans made by Deutsche Bank came at a time when all other Wall Street banks found Trump to be toxic given his string of bankruptcies in the 1990s. Offit tells the Times that lending to otherwise untouchable borrowers was how the bank made a name for itself.

The first sign of potential trouble for the bank came when Trump asked for hundreds of millions of dollars for his Trump Marina casino in Atlantic City that used a forged signature of a credit officer to get approval. Because of this, the loan for the casino never went through.

In a later deal to fund the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, Trump told wary bank officials that he had a net worth of $3 billion. However, when bank employees did an examination of Trump's finances, they concluded he was worth roughly $788 million.