Last week, the Washington Post reported that former Attorney General Bill Barr shut down a probe into whether the Egyptian government illegally funneled $10 million to former President Donald Trump's campaign in 2016.
On Monday morning, one of the reporters behind the scoop took to social media to discuss why this was such an explosive development.
Writing on Twitter, Post reporter Carol Leonnig said that the investigation into whether Trump illegally took money from Egypt was "the most serious allegation of a bribe in White House history."
Specifically, Leonnig cites three factors that make this investigation stand out: "1/ It was based on "jaw-dropping" CIA intelligence that indicated Egypt's president sought in 2016 to illegally inject $10M to help elect Trump; 2/ the lead came from a reliable CIA informant and was corroborated by other US intelligence operations; 3/ investigators then discovered a $10M cash withdrawal in Jan 2017 from key Egyptian spy agency account that seemed to validate the intel."
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According to the Post's reporting, an organization linked to Egypt's intelligence services instructed the country's state-run bank to withdraw $10 million in cash, which was then stuffed into two large bags and carried out of the bank.
"Federal investigators learned of the withdrawal, which has not been previously reported, early in 2019," the Post reported. "The discovery intensified a secret criminal investigation that had begun two years earlier with classified U.S. intelligence indicating that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign."
As if that weren't enough, the DOJ was also investigating whether Trump knew about the potential to be reimbursed by Egypt — and if that contributed to his decision to spend $10 million of his own money in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.