Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah Al-Sisi may have given former US President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump a $10 million cash boost for his 2016 campaign, according to a Washington Post investigation.
The investigation found that only five days before Trump became president, an organization linked to the Egyptian intelligence service, the Research and Studies Center, asked a state-run bank in Cairo to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10 million.
The center reportedly has no public profile, and US authorities suspected it was a front for Egypt’s intelligence service.
Bundles of $100 bills were placed into two bags, which were later carried off by four men, according to the Post.
The withdrawal was later discovered by US officials in 2019, which intensified an investigation previously launched into intelligence indicating Sisi wanted to donate millions to Trump.
In Trump’s final days of presidency, he reportedly injected $10 million of what was considered to be his own funds into his campaign, according to the Post.
The transfer could violate federal law banning US candidates from receiving foreign funds.
Roadblocks in the investigation
The Post claimed that top Justice Department officials blocked prosecutors and FBI agents from obtaining bank records on the transaction, which people familiar with the case claimed held critical evidence.
“Every American should be concerned about how this case ended,” an anonymous person connected with the case told the Post. “The Justice Department is supposed to follow evidence wherever it leads — it does so all the time to determine if a crime occurred or not.”
Trump’s then-attorney general, William P. Barr, raised doubts that there was enough evidence against Trump. Barr also reportedly ordered FBI Director Christopher A. Wray to closely watch FBI agents “hell-bent” on pursuing Trump’s records, people familiar with the exchange told the Post.
A spokesperson for Trump’s campaign told the Post that this was a “textbook Fake News.”
“The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed,” spokesman Steven Cheung said by email. “None of the allegations or insinuations being reported on have any basis in fact. The Washington Post is consistently played for suckers by Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors peddling hoaxes and shams.”
The Egyptian government declined to comment.
Despite Trump’s campaign denying the validity of the investigation, the Washington Post said it interviewed more than two dozen people with knowledge of the case and reviewed thousands of pages of government records and court filings.