Category / Jared Kushner

by Crimson Tazvinzwa

Trump says he’s trying to help A$AP Rocky after rapper ordered to remain in Swedish jail

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Swedish ambassador to the US insists it’s ‘perfectly safe’ for people of colour to visit the country//Clémence MichallonNew York @Clemence_Mcl

Donald Trump says he’s trying to help A$AP Rocky as the rapper has been ordered to spend six more days in a Swedish jail while prosecutors investigate him over a street fight in Stockholm.

“We hope to get him home soon,” the president told a pool reporter on Friday, saying that First Lady Melania Trump had brought the situation to his attention.

Prosecutors requested more time for their investigation of the 30-year-old US rapper, producer and model, whose real name is Rakim Mayers. A district court granted the request.

Daniel Suneson, the prosecutor in charge of the case, said the court decided to keep A$AP Rocky in custody because of an alleged flight risk.

“This gives us time to complete the investigation,” Suneson added.

The artist’s lawyer, Slobodan Jovicic, said the decision was expected but unfair, and that A$AP Rocky was innocent.

“He believes he was assaulted and has acted in self-defence,” Jovicic told journalists.

The detention of A$AP Rocky has gained widespread attention. More than 600,000 people have signed an online petition for his release, while fellow artists have also expressed their support.

Kim Kardashian called senior White House advisor and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner about the issue, after which Mr Kushner flagged the situation with Mr Trump, The New York Times reported citing a person familiar with the communications.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Carl Risch met him on Friday and was due to hold talks on the issue with the foreign ministry and the justice department during a two-day visit to Sweden.

Karin Olofsdotter, the Swedish Ambassador to the United States, told TMZ her embassy has been in contact with the US State Department, members of Congress and the White House.

Asked what she would like to tell people who believe that it’s not safe for people of colour to travel to Sweden, the ambassador said in part: “I would say it’s perfectly safe and people are of course more than welcome. The more Americans who want to come to Sweden, the better.”

A$AP Rocky was detained on 3 July along with his bodyguard and two other members of his entourage in connection with a fight in a Stockholm city-centre street in the early hours of 30 June.

Before his arrest, he uploaded videos to his Instagram account of an altercation with two men, alleging they had followed him and his entourage and that he had not wanted any trouble.

The bodyguard was released without charge while a judge on 5 July extended the detention of A$AP Rocky and his two other associates.

The performer was in Stockholm for a concert and has had to cancel several shows in his European tour.

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by Crimson Tazvinzwa

Deutsche Bank staff flagged Trump, Kushner transactions: report

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Donald Trump has dismissed the report as fake news

Anti-money laundering staff at Deutsche Bank flagged Trump, Kushner transactions: NYT//RTE

Anti-money laundering specialists at Deutsche Bank AG recommended in 2016 and 2017 that multiple transactions involving entities controlled by US President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, be reported to a federal financial-crimes watchdog, the New York Times has reported.

The newspaper, citing five current and former Deutsche Bank employees, said executives at the German-based bank, which has lent billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies, rejected their employees’ advice and the reports were never filed with the government.

US President Donald Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner

Deutsche Bank denied the report but shares in Germany’s largest bank hit a new low today, below a previous minimum set in December.

At 11.50am, shares traded down 3.2% at €6.62.

The compliance allegations are the latest in a wave of problems to beset the bank which faces investors at its annual meeting on Thursday.

The Times said the transactions, some of which involved Mr Trump’s now-defunct foundation, set off alerts in a computer system designed to detect illicit activity, according to the former bank employees.

Compliance staff members who then reviewed the transactions prepared so-called suspicious activity reports that they believed should be sent to a unit of the Treasury Department that polices financial crimes, according to the newspaper.

Deutsche Bank responded with a denial of the report.

“At no time was an investigator prevented from escalating activity identified as potentially suspicious,” the bank said in a statement.

“Furthermore, the suggestion that anyone was reassigned orfired in an effort to quash concerns relating to any client iscategorically false.”

In a series of tweets, Mr Trump dismissed the claims as fake news and said Deutsche Bank was “very good and highly professional to deal with”.

Deutsche is facing a series of headaches.

Investors are calling on the bank to scale back its investment bank after talks to merge with a rival failed and amid a grim profit outlook. European regulators also fear Deutsche could fail US stress tests.

The Times reported the bank employees viewed the decision not to report the transactions as a result of a lax approach to money laundering laws.

They said there was a pattern of bank executives rejecting reports to protect relationships with lucrative clients, according to the newspaper.

One employee who reviewed some of the transactions said she was terminated last year after raising concerns about the bank’s practices, the Times reported.

A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization told Reuters “the story is absolute nonsense.” “We have no knowledge of any ‘flagged’ transactions with Deutsche Bank. In fact, we have no operating accounts with Deutsche Bank,” she said.

The newspaper said a Kushner Companies spokeswoman called any allegations of relationships involving money laundering” made up and totally false.”

The Times said the nature of the transactions was not clear.

At least some of them involved money flowing back and forth with overseas entities or individuals, which bank employees considered suspicious.

The report surfaces at a time when congressional and New York state authorities are investigating the relationship between Mr Trump, his family and Deutsche Bank, and demanding documents related to any suspicious activity.

Mr Trump has sued in court in an attempt to block US House of Representatives subpoenas for his financial records that were sent to Deutsche Bank, Capital One Financial Corp and the accounting firm Mazars LLP.

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