TEHRAN, April 13 -Democratic lawmakers on Thursday questioned whether the head of a Chicago bank was seeking a favor from the incoming Trump administration when he inquired about the confirmation process for a top U.S. Army position before extending $16 million in loans to Trump’s former campaign chairman.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) -Democratic lawmakers on Thursday questioned whether the head of a Chicago bank was seeking a favor from the incoming Trump administration when he inquired about the confirmation process for a top U.S. Army position before extending $16 million in loans to Trump’s former campaign chairman.
Lawmakers disclosed the inquiry as part of an ongoing probe into loans from Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank to Paul Manafort in the weeks after Donald Trump’s election victory in November 2016. The investigation is being conducted by ranking Democratic members of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a national security subcommittee.
Public records show Federal Savings made two loans to Manafort in December 2016 and January 2017: a $9.5 million mortgage secured by Manafort’s home in the wealthy Hamptons enclave in New York and a $6.5 million loan against a brownstone in Brooklyn.
A string of media reports last year suggested the loans might have been part of a quid pro quo agreement in which Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign chairman until August 2016, would make sure Stephen Calk, chief executive of Federal Savings, was named secretary of the Army.
The lawmakers, Elijah Cummings and Stephen Lynch, said the Department of Defense (DOD) reported to them that Calk had called Army administrative personnel in November 2016 “regarding the confirmation process in general.”
Federal Savings said in a statement that media reports implying Manafort received the loans in exchange for the promise of a position were not true. The bank said it was cooperating with a federal probe overseen by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
Source: Reuters