Trump’s scheme to give criminal bank a major break under cover of holidays just got exposed

President Trump just gave a very valuable legal concession to the only bank willing to lend him money after multiple failed real estate deals and business bankruptcies trashed his credit rating long ago. That company, Deutsche Bank, is under investigation by Special Counsel Mueller.

Trump’s Department of Labor manages the federal Employee Benefits Security Administration (ERISA), which is in charge of protecting Americans’ retirement savings. ERISA published a waiver to allow Deutsche Bank and four other large Wall Street banks to handle American retirement funds, even though they’ve been convicted of crimes.

The benefits arrived for Deutsche Bank and four other convicted banks in an obscure notice in the Federal Register just after Christmas on the Friday before New Year’s Eve. IBT reports:

The Trump administration has waived part of the punishment for five megabanks whose affiliates were convicted and fined for manipulating global interest rates. One of the Trump administration waivers was granted to Deutsche Bank — which is owed at least $130 million by President Donald Trump and his business empire, and has also been fined for its role in a Russian money laundering scheme.

The waivers were issued in a little-noticed announcement published in the Federal Register during the Christmas holiday week. They come less than two years after then-candidate Trump promised, “I’m not going to let Wall Street get away with murder.”

Under laws designed to protect retirement savings, financial firms whose affiliates have been convicted of violating securities statutes are effectively barred from the lucrative business of managing those savings. However, that punishment can be avoided if the firms manage to secure a special exemption from the U.S. Department of Labor, allowing them to keep their status as “qualified professional asset managers.”

President Obama’s administration only granted the banks 1-year waivers to ensure that the banks behaved, and to protect ordinary savers’ investments into their funds.

But Trump handed out a 3-year waiver to his lender and up to 5-year waivers to others.

Deutsche Bank (DB) is a German-based company recently convicted of interest rate manipulation in the LIBOR scandal and money laundering Russian cash in the “Global Laundromat” scandal.

DB also paid a massive 7.2 billion dollar fine to Obama’s Department of Justice only three days before Trump’s inauguration for their central role in the 2008 financial crash which sparked a dreadful foreclosure crisis in America.

President Trump owes DB at least $130 million and up to $300 million, and also owes them a mysterious $50 million dollar loan related to his Chicago project, which creates an obvious conflict of interest.

If that wasn’t enough, his son-in-law and White House advisor Jared Kushner also recently took out a massive loan with DB, which Mueller’s prosecutors are examining.

Donald Trump’s potential conflicts of interest made the news long before he secured enough votes for the Republican nomination, before the Republican convention awarded him the nomination, after the RNC convention, and during the general election campaign.

However, Hillary Clinton’s emails received more coverage than the Republican politician who could enter office in hock to some of the world’s largest banks, who happen to engage in some of the world’s largest financial crimes.

Predictably, Donald Trump has done a 180-degree pivot from his populist campaign lies and given a multi-year free pass to five convicted banks – including Deutsche Bank, upon which he depends for business survival.

Grant Stern

Editor at Large

is the Executive Editor of Occupy Democrats and published author. His new Meet the Candidates 2020 book series is distributed by Simon and Schuster. He's also a mortgage broker, community activist and radio personality in Miami, Florida., as well as the producer of the Dworkin Report podcast. Grant is also an occasional contributor to Raw Story, Alternet, and the DC Report, an unpaid senior advisor to the Democratic Coalition, and a Director of Sunshine Agenda Inc. a government transparency nonprofit organization. Get all of his stories sent directly to your inbox here: