flickr/Elliott Brown
Congressmen suggest financial ties between the two banks could somehow be connected to the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
Deutsche Bank AG, seeking to slash its exposure to Russia in late 2016, scrambled to shed a $600 million loan it had outstanding to VTB Group, a large Russian state-owned bank, according to documents and people familiar with the funding.
The German lender sold $300 million of the loan to another Russian financial institution, Alfa Bank, in December 2016; Deutsche wasn't able to sell the rest of the loan, and VTB paid it back in August 2017, the documents show and the people said, according to The Wall Street Journal.
VTB said that was a standard loan, but the Congress has decided to look closely into this story, given Donald Trump's long-term relationship with Deutsche Bank. At the same time, the latter in 2016 refused to issue a loan to a company that owns the president's real estate in Florida. The German bank then explained the denial by saying that Trump National Doral had failed to provide sufficient explanations of the ultimate purpose of the loan. However, previously, Deutsche Bank had been lending money to Trump's companies for almost 20 years, due to which the future president invested in expensive projects in Washington, New York, Chicago, and Florida.
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As for VTB, congressmen recalled the statement by Trump's long-time business partner Felix Sater, who said that in 2016, he had allegedly received guarantees that the Russian bank was ready to invest in the construction of Trump Tower in Moscow. He shared this information with Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer.
In turn, VTB stressed they had never had any business with Trump, his representatives or affiliated companies.
In May 2017, members of the Financial Services Committee of the United States House of Representatives already asked Deutsche Bank to provide the reports following the two internal investigations about Trump loans' connection with Russia. The lawmakers asked the German bank to indicate whether the loans had been guaranteed by the Russian government or linked to Russia in any other way.
Deutsche Bank then refused to comment on the House's appeal. It was stated the Democrats could not force the German bank to provide information they required because at that time, they did not have a majority in the U.S. Congress.