A recent report by The Washington Post has uncovered a secret U.S. criminal investigation into whether Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Egypt’s authoritarian leader, attempted to channel $10 million to Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The inquiry is said to focus on an Egypt-linked group that allegedly withdrew the funds just days before Trump’s inauguration.
The spokesperson for Trump dismissed the allegations as the work of “Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors.”
The Guardian reports that Steven Cheung told the Washington Post in a report published on Friday, “The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed.”
He said, “None of the allegations or insinuations being reported on have any basis in fact. The Washington Post is consistently misled by Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors promoting hoaxes and shams.”
The case concerning alleged interference in the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump has resumed following a decision on immunity. The “deep state” conspiracy theory suggests that a permanent, secret government works to undermine Trump.
Steve Bannon, one of the theory’s main proponents, has described it as being for “nut cases.” Nevertheless, it remains popular among Trump supporters.
Bannon, Trump’s 2016 campaign chair, is linked to reports from the Post stating that five days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, a group associated with Egyptian intelligence withdrew $10 million from a Cairo bank.
However, employees at the state-run National Bank of Egypt reportedly placed $100 bills into two large bags, which four men then took away. U.S. officials later described the bags in sealed court filings as weighing 200 pounds and containing a significant portion of Egypt’s U.S. currency reserves.
U.S. federal investigators became aware of this transaction in 2019, two years after starting an investigation into CIA intelligence suggesting that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi intended to give Trump $10 million, potentially violating federal law on foreign contributions.
In a New York state case this year involving hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, Trump was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The Post reported that investigators also explored whether the $10 million from Sisi influenced Trump’s decision to inject $10 million of his own money into his campaign during the final days of his 2016 presidential run.
As Trump campaigns for president again, the Post’s report follows the bribery conviction of Democratic Senator Robert Menendez from New Jersey, who received gold bars and cash from Egyptian sources. Menendez faces a maximum sentence of 222 years.
During his presidency, Trump often praised Sisi, despite concerns from U.S. politicians about Sisi’s authoritarian regime.
The U.S. investigation into the Cairo withdrawal was questioned by William Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, and was ultimately closed without charges by a prosecutor appointed by Barr.
CNN reported that a secretive 2018 hearing in a Washington D.C. courthouse, involving prosecutors from Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, concerned an Egyptian bank.
Jason Miller, a Trump spokesperson at the time, stated, “President Trump has never received a penny from Egypt.”
Meanwhile, on Friday, Cheung, Trump’s current spokesperson, called the Post report “textbook fake news.”
The Justice Department, the U.S. attorney in Washington D.C., and the FBI declined to comment, according to the Post.
Michael Sherwin, the prosecutor who closed the case, said he stands by his decision.
An Egyptian government spokesperson declined to answer the Post’s questions.
An anonymous government source told the Post, “Every American should be concerned about how this case ended. 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.”