Trump may have a $300 million conflict of interest with Deutsche Bank

Notice that there's no mention here of any concern by the U.S. government about Deutsche Bank's confessed involvement in the gold price suppression scheme -- a very conspicuous omission by not only the U.S. government but by Bloomberg News itself.

* * *

By Keri Geiger, Greg Farrell, and Sarah Mulholland
Bloomberg News
Thursday, December 22, 2016

For years Donald Trump has used a powerful tool when dealing with bankers: his personal guarantee.

Now that guarantee -- employed to extract better terms on hundreds of millions of dollars of loans to the Trump Organization -- is at the center of a delicate loan-restructuring discussion at Deutsche Bank AG, which is under investigation on several fronts by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The bank is trying to restructure some of Trump's roughly $300 million debt as part of an attempt to reduce any conflict of interest between the loan and his presidency, according to a person familiar with the matter. Normally, the removal of a personal pledge might lead to more-stringent terms. But there is little normal about this interaction. Trump's attorney general will inherit an investigation of Deutsche Bank related to stock trades for rich clients in Russia -- where Trump says he plans to improve relations -- and may have to deal with a possible multibillion-dollar penalty to the bank related to mortgage-bond investigations.

Whatever terms a restructured loan might include, they will reflect the complex new relationship spawned between Germany’s largest bank and its highest-profile client. Ethicists say this concerns them. ...

... For the remainder of the report:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-22/deutsche-bank-s-rewor...