Inside DOJ’s mysterious abandonment of a Russian money-laundering case against Deutsche bank

When other banks weren’t making generous loans to Donald Trump and the Trump Organization, Deutsche Bank was. David Enrich, finance editor of the New York Times and author of the new book, “Dark Towers: Deutsche Bank, Donald Trump and an Epic Trail of Destruction,” discussed Deutsche’s relationship Trump and a seemingly abandoned U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against the bank during a Monday night, February 17 appearance on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.”

Maddow, noting that Trump “probably owes hundreds of millions of dollars to this one institution,” asked Enrich “whatever happened to” a possible U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) case against Deutsche Bank that involved a “Russian money laundering scandal.” And Enrich responded, “That is the million-dollar question.”

Enrich explained that during the final months of the Obama Administration, the DOJ was “close” to bringing a “criminal case” against Deutsche Bank “for its involvement in Russian money laundering” — but after Trump became president, the case fell by the wayside.

“Deutsche Bank executives became convinced that this was just too hot to handle for the Trump Administration,” Enrich told Maddow. “They did not want anyone in the Administration to bring more public attention to the very close relationship between Deutsche Bank and Russia on the one hand and Deutsche Bank and Trump on the other hand.”

Maddow asked Enrich what Deutsche Bank has told him about either the Trump Administration or the bank’s ties to Russia. And Enrich responded, “They’ve publicly refused to speak (or) say much of anything in public about their client. They acknowledge that Trump is a client. Trump has disclosed, in his limited White House disclosures, the amounts that he owes and what those loans are.”

Enrich went on to say, “They are trying to — desperately, I think — make this very bad situation, where they are kind of the public face of Donald Trump’s finances…. go away.”