A branch of Deutsche Bank seen February 9, 2016, in Berlin.

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  • President Donald Trump lashed out at a New York Times report Monday in which current and former Deutsche Bank employees said that concerns about activity from accounts tied to Trump in 2016 and 2017 were ignored.
  • The report noted Trump’s long history with Deutsche Bank, which it said had lent Trump money at a time when “most Wall Street banks had stopped doing business with him after his repeated defaults.”
  • Trump took issue with the idea that banks didn’t want to do business with him, saying he didn’t seek the custom of other banks “because I didn’t need money.”
  • “Deutsche Bank was very good and highly professional to deal with – and if for any reason I didn’t like them, I would have gone elsewhere,” the president tweeted.
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President Donald Trump in a series of early-morning tweets Monday lashed out at a New York Times report in which current and former employees said some workers were ignored when they raised concerns about accounts connected to the president.

The report’s sources said anti-money-laundering specialists at the bank recommended that numerous transactions in 2016 and 2017 involving entities controlled by Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, should be referred to a federal financial-crimes watchdog over suspicious activity.

The sources said executives at the bank did not follow up on the concerns, something three former employees told The Times was “unusual.” The Times noted that the concerns did not necessarily mean anything inappropriate had taken place.

The Times has reported often about Trump’s ties to Deutsche Bank. It noted in Monday’s report that the bank lent Trump and his businesses $2.5 billion at a time when “most Wall Street banks had stopped doing business with him after his repeated defaults.”

“The Failing New York Times (it will pass away when I leave office in 6 years), and others of the Fake News Media, keep writing phony stories about how I didn’t use many banks because they didn’t want to do business with me,” Trump tweeted. “WRONG! It is because I didn’t need money.”

“Very old fashioned, but true. When you don’t need or want money, you don’t need or want banks. Banks have always been available to me, they want to make money. Fake Media only says this to disparage, and always uses unnamed sources (because their sources don’t even exist).”

He went on to praise Deutsche Bank, which he described as “highly professional.”

He continued: “The new big story is that Trump made a lot of money and buys everything for cash, he doesn’t need banks. But where did he get all of that cash? Could it be Russia?

“No, I built a great business and don’t need banks, but if I did they would be there…and Deutsche Bank was very good and highly professional to deal with – and if for any reason I didn’t like them, I would have gone elsewhere….there was always plenty of money around and banks to choose from.

“They would be very happy to take my money. Fake News!”

During the Monday tweetstorm, the president went on to say there were “two tweets missing from the last batch” but provided no further details, blaming it on a “Twitter error.”

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