Trump facing double-whammy of criminal charges and crushing debt if he loses: columnist

President Donald J. Trump knows he needs to win the 2020 presidential election -- or else.

"If he loses, it is better-than-even odds that he ends up in the sneezer. He damn sure will find himself, as my pal Bill Livingston in Cleveland puts it, riding every ride in Depositionland," journalist Charles P. Pierce wrote Tuesday. "Letitia James, the attorney general of New York, already seems to have cleared a spot for his head on her office wall, and certain federal jurisdictions are fairly itching to get out from under the regime of William Barr and get back to the business of prosecuting crimes. He knows it, too, if The New York Times is to be believed."

"In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses. He is concerned not only about existing investigations in New York, but the potential for new federal probes as well, according to people who have spoken with him," The New York Times reported. "While Mr. Trump has not aired those worries in the open, he has railed against the democratic process, raising baseless doubts about the integrity of the vote."

"Deutsche Bank has about $340 million in loans outstanding to the Trump Organization, the president’s umbrella group that is currently overseen by his two sons, according to filings made by Trump to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics in July and a senior source within the bank," Reuters reported. "The three loans, which are against Trump properties and start coming due in two years, are current on payments and personally guaranteed by the president, according to two bank officials. In meetings in recent months, a Deutsche Bank management committee that oversees reputational and other risks for the lender in the Americas region has discussed ways in which it could rid the bank of these last vestiges of the relationship, two of the three bank officials said. The bank has over the years lent Trump more than $2 billion, one of the officials said."

Reuters also reported, "One idea that has come up in the meetings: sell the loans in the secondary market, two of the bank officials said. But one of the officials said that idea has not gained traction, in part because it is not clear who would want to buy the loans and the attendant problems that come with it. While it was known that Deutsche Bank has been closely examining its relationship with Trump, including by setting up a working group in 2016 to review the bank’s relationship with him, its recent eagerness to end all ties and the contours of discussions in light of the election have not been previously reported."

"There are hungry prosecutors out there in the mist, and the laundromat is closed," Pierce said. "No wonder the only wall he's finished is the one around the White House."