Trump instructed staff to let off an Iranian gold trader linked to Rudy Giuliani: report

On Wednesday, Bloomberg News reported that in 2017, President Donald Trump asked then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to pressure his own Justice Department to drop a criminal investigation into Reza Zarrab, an Iranian-Turkish gold trader who was a client of Rudy Giuliani.

Tillerson reportedly refused, telling the president it would be unethical to interfere in the investigation — and those in the Oval Office when Trump made the request were reportedly left in shock.

Zarrab was convicted in 2017 for his role in a billion-dollar bribery scheme to the Turkish finance minister in order to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. He was sentenced to 32 months in prison.