WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been seeking President Donald Trump’s tax records, subpoenaed his longtime lender Deutsche Bank last year, suggesting its criminal investigation into Trump’s business practices is more wide-ranging than previously known, the New York Times said on Wednesday.
The prosecutors issued the subpoena last year, seeking financial records that the Republican president and his company had provided to the bank, the Times said, citing four unnamed people.
The office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance declined to confirm or deny the report. Deutsche Bank and the White House did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.
The Times said Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena and provided prosecutors with “detailed records, including financial statements and other materials” that Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans.
Vance, a Democrat, this week suggested a grand jury subpoena for Trump’s tax returns was part of an investigation of “possibly extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization,” including alleged insurance and bank fraud.
Vance’s investigation into Trump and the Trump Organization was spurred by disclosures of hush payments to two women who said they had had sexual relationships with Trump before he became president. Trump has denied the claims.
Vance, who is seeking to dismiss Trump’s latest challenge to the subpoena for eight years of personal and corporate tax records, raised the scope of the probe in court papers filed in federal court in Manhattan on Monday.
While Deutsche Bank’s response to the subpoena “reinforces the seriousness of the legal threat” the investigation poses for the Republican president and his business, the inquiry is still at an early stage, the Times said, citing an unnamed person.
(Reporting by Mohammad Zargham and Eric Beech; Editing by Leslie Adler)
