Chump Towers: Why the Worst is Yet to Come
by John Lawrence
Yesterday the Attorney General of New York sued Trump for bank fraud. But that is only the half of it. The other half is tax fraud. The referral to the IRS will take care of that. Trump's dilemma is that he overestimated his assets to get cheap bank loans and then turned around and underestimated his income to reduce his taxes. Most banks refused to deal with Trump. Even Deutsche bank, which is a sprawling behemoth in which the right division doesn't know what the left division is doing, refused to deal with Trump except for one enabler - Rosemary Vrablic.She oversaw hundreds of millions of dollars in loans to President Trump’s company. She resigned in 2021. According to the New York Times:
"Ms. Vrablic ... joined Deutsche Bank in 2006 from Bank of America. Ms. Vrablic quickly made a name for herself as one of her division’s leading rainmakers. In 2011, she landed a prominent new client: Mr. Trump, who for decades had been mostly off limits to the mainstream banking world because of his tendency to default on loans. With her bosses’ approval, Ms. Vrablic agreed to a series of loans, totaling well over $300 million, for his newly acquired Doral golf resort in Florida, for his troubled Chicago skyscraper and for the transformation of the Old Post Office building in Washington into a luxury hotel."
Rosemary was a V.I.P. guest at Trump's inauguration. She was Trump's personal banker at Deutshe at a time when no other bank and most divisions of Deutsche would not even do business with him. Trump had a history of defaulting on loans and stiffing contractors. The article continues:
"Mr. Trump’s key contacts at his biggest financial backer are leaving at a perilous time for the departing president. He owes Deutsche Bank about $330 million, and the loans come due in 2023 and 2024. Mr. Trump provided a personal guarantee to get the loans, meaning that if he fails to pay them back, the bank can pursue his personal assets."
Attorney General, Letitia James, is suing Trump for $250 million for bank fraud in addition to essentially shutting down all his operations in the state of New York. But this might be a small amount when the IRS comes forth with its own accounting and accusations. A few hundred million here, a few hundred million there, pretty soon you're talking about real money. With Rosemary Vrablic gone, Trump has lost probably the last banker even willing to do business with him.
Deutsche bank is cooperating with the investigation. Stay tuned.
