Deutsche Bank has launched an internal review into the personal banker for President Donald Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kusher, The New York Times first reported Sunday and Business Insider confirmed.
The company is looking into Rosemary Vrablic and two of her coworkers regarding a 2013 purchase of an approximately $1.5 million apartment on New York City’s Park Avenue from the real estate firm Bergel 715 Associates, a company that Kushner has a financial stake in, according to The Times.
Kushner disclosed Friday in a financial report that he and his wife, Ivanka Trump, earned between $1 million and $5 million in income from Bergel 715, and a source told The Times that Kushner was a part-owner of the firm when the transaction was made.
Banks often have policies barring employees from doing personal business with their clients in order to avoid conflicts of interest between bankers and their employers.
Deutsche Bank spokesperson Daniel Hunter confirmed the review and directed Business Insider to its statement to The Times, which said: “The bank will closely examine the information that came to light on Friday and the fact pattern from 2013.”
Deutsche Bank also told The Times that it was not aware that its employees — Vrablic, as well as Dominic Scalzi and Matthew Pontoriero, two of her coworkers on the company’s private-banking team — had done business with a company connected to Kushner until contacted by the paper.
Kushner and his family have banked with Vrablic since before she started at Deutsche Bank in 2011, according to The Times, and he told the House Intelligence Committee that he introduced Trump to Vrablic “about six years ago.”
Vrablic entered the public spotlight during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign when he told The Times in an interview about his alleged struggle to find bankers: “Why don’t you call the head of Deutsche Bank? Her name is Rosemary Vrablic.” (Vrablic is and was not the head of Deutsche Bank; that was John Cryan at the time).
Trump’s relationship with Deutsche Bank has repeatedly come under scrutiny. Last year, The Times reported that the bank had loaned him more than $2 billion over more than two decades — with Vrablic personally steering more than $300 million his way despite his long history of defaults.
Federal prosecutors from multiple jurisdictions including the FBI opened an investigation last year into Deutsche Bank after an employee flagged a series of suspicious money transfers between Kushner Companies and Russians.
Lawmakers have also been seeking to use the bank as a way to gain a window into Trump’s personal finances, as it has acknowledged it holds private copies of his tax returns.
Kushner and Vrablic could not be reached for comment on this story.
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