Current:Home > Contact-usDeutsche Bank was keen to land a ‘whale’ of a client in Trump, documents at his fraud trial show-LoTradeCoin
Deutsche Bank was keen to land a ‘whale’ of a client in Trump, documents at his fraud trial show
View Date:2024-12-23 23:41:06
NEW YORK (AP) — Deutsche Bank viewed Donald Trump as a “whale” of a client, was eager to land him and eagerly cultivated a relationship that grew from $13,000 worth of revenue to $6 million in two years, according to documents presented Wednesday at the former president’s civil fraud trial.
The bank’s dealings with Trump are a key issue in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit, which accuses Trump, his company and some executives of hoodwinking lenders and insurers by presenting them with grossly inflated statements of his asset values.
The defendants deny any wrongdoing. They have sought to show that the bank felt delighted, not deceived, by Trump and courted his business.
“We are whale hunting,” then-bank managing director Rosemary Vrablic wrote colleagues in November 2011, after she had been introduced to Trump’s son Donald Jr. but had yet to meet the elder Trump. The bankers used “whale” to refer to a very wealthy client, Vrablic testified Wednesday.
Vrablic first came into contact with the Trumps when they were looking for a loan to buy the Doral golf resort near Miami. Over the next three years, that contact blossomed into loans for that project and two others in Chicago and Washington, as well as multimillion-dollar deposits in the bank.
The bank’s revenue from its Trump business shot up from about $13,000 in 2011 to a projected $6 million in 2013, according to a bank document prepared for the then-co-chairman, Anshu Jain, before a lunch with Trump in early 2013.
The briefing document suggested “key asks” for Jain to make: “Obtain more deposits and investment management assets,” and “strategically discuss leveraging Mr. Trump’s personal and professional network within the real estate industry in NY” for the bank’s benefit.
And how did it go?
“It was a very, very nice, productive lunch,” Vrablic recalled on the stand.
The next year, her direct boss went to lunch with Trump to thank him and “ask whether we can work on other opportunities with them,” according to a document for that meeting.
James maintains that Trump’s allegedly inflated financial statements were critical to netting his company the Deutsche Bank loans at favorable rates, saving him many millions of dollars in interest.
Trump says the financial statements actually underestimated his wealth and that a disclaimer on them absolves him of liability for any problematic figures. Trump, the current front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, claims that James, a Democrat, is trying to harm his prospects of returning to the White House.
Judge Arthur Engoron will decide the verdict. He ruled before the trial that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud and he ordered that a receiver take control of some of Trump’s properties, putting their future oversight in question. An appeals court has put that order on hold for now.
The trial concerns remaining claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. James is seeking more than $300 million in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.
veryGood! (21)
Related
- Just Eat Takeaway sells Grubhub for $650 million, just 3 years after buying the app for $7.3 billion
- New Sonya Massey video shows officer offering help hours before fatal shooting
- Broadway 2024: See which Hollywood stars and new productions will hit New York
- North Carolina musician arrested, accused of Artificial Intelligence-assisted fraud caper
- Digital Finance Research Institute Introduce
- Ben Platt Marries Noah Galvin After Over 4 Years of Dating
- Queen guitarist Brian May suffered minor stroke, lost 'control' in his arm
- A list of mass killings in the United States this year
- U.S.-Mexico water agreement might bring relief to parched South Texas
- California settles lawsuit with Sacramento suburb over affordable housing project
Ranking
- Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid Enjoy a Broadway Date Night and All that Jazz
- California companies wrote their own gig worker law. Now no one is enforcing it
- The Daily Money: A Labor Day strike
- California settles lawsuit with Sacramento suburb over affordable housing project
- Fire crews on both US coasts battle wildfires, 1 dead; Veterans Day ceremony postponed
- Noel Parmentel Jr., a literary gadfly with some famous friends, dies at 98
- WNBA playoffs: Angel Reese, Chicago Sky fighting for final postseason spot
- Broadway 2024: See which Hollywood stars and new productions will hit New York
Recommendation
-
Asian sesame salad sold in Wegmans supermarkets recalled over egg allergy warning
-
Horoscopes Today, September 4, 2024
-
Voting-related lawsuits filed in multiple states could be a way to contest the presidential election
-
Grandmother charged with homicide, abuse of corpse in 3-year-old granddaughter’s death
-
Chipotle unveils cilantro-scented soap, 'water' cup candles in humorous holiday gift line
-
Maryland will participate in the IRS’s online tax filing program
-
Consumer spending data looks solid, but some shoppers continue to struggle
-
Bill Belichick, Nick Saban were often brutal with media. Now they are media.