Trump Says Deutsche Bank, Now ‘Maligned,’ Wanted His Business

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump defended troubled Deutsche Bank AG on Thursday and said the German financial institution wanted his business, which is now the subject of investigations by congressional Democrats.In a Twitter thread attacking media coverage of his past banking practices, Trump said, “A bank that I did use years ago, the now badly written about and maligned Deutsche Bank, was then one of the largest and most prestigious banks in the world! They wanted my business, and so did many others!”Trump comments came after his personal lawyers faulted House Democrats’ demand for records from his outside accounting firm as an unauthorized attempt to pry into his business dealings as they prepare for a showdown Friday in an appeals court.Trump’s lawyers are trying to convince a three-judge panel that a Washington judge erred in allowing the House Oversight and Reform Committee to demand that Trump’s accountant, Mazars USA LLP, turn over records dating back to 2011, including those pertaining to the Trump Organization, his charitable foundation and the operating company for his luxury hotel just blocks from the White House.A New York-based federal appeals court will hear arguments next month as the president’s attorneys seek a reversal of a separate court ruling giving a different House panel access to Trump records held by Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Corp.The president owes Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank about $300 million for loans related to his Washington hotel, a Chicago tower and Florida golf resort Doral, financial disclosures and property records show. The bank on July 7 said it would slash 18,000 jobs -- about 20% of its workforce -- by 2022 as part of a sweeping overhaul of its operations after years of mismanagement, multibillion-dollar fines and declining revenue eroded profitability.To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Kasia Klimasinska at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Steve GeimannFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.