In January 2017, a bank manager at the National Bank of Egypt in Cairo received a letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service asking them “kindly withdraw” about $10 million in cash from the organization’s account. That took place just five days before Donald Trump became president, The Washington Post reported in an exclusive on Friday, revealing that federal investigators believed the withdrawn cash may have been intended as a bribe for the Republican.
According to bank records, the state-run branch emptied a considerable share of Egypt’s reserve of U.S. currency by filling two large bags with bundles of $100 bills weighing a combined 200 pounds. Later four men arrived to carry away the bags.
This sizable withdrawal caught the attention of federal investigators early in 2019, reviving a secret criminal investigation that had begun two years prior into allegations contained in a classified U.S. intelligence assessment that Egypt's dictator, Abdel Fatah El-Sisi, had agreed to give $10 million to Trump's campaign. In office, Trump repeatedly praised Sisi, his administration releasing hundreds of millions of dollars in aid that had been held up over concern about Egypt's abysmal human rights record.
Candidates for federal office are barred from accepting foreign donations. There is no proof that any money made it to Trump's coffers, but as the Post reported that could in part be due to the fact they were unable to subpoena the former president's bank records for the time he was in office. Trump had, in October 2016, injected $10 million into his own campaign in the form of a loan; this after meeting with Sisi when he was in New York for a trip to the United Nations.
The investigation was closed under former Attorney General William Barr, a Trump loyalist who reportedly questioned whether there was sufficient evidence to continue the probe, which has not been renewed under Attorney General Merrick Garland
Investigators "were blocked from seeking key records to determine if Trump took the money, then the case was shut down,” the Washington Post investigative reporter Carol Leonnig noted on X.
News of the investigation comes after Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., was convicted last month for himself accepting bribes from the Egyptian government.
