How could a $10M Egyptian cash withdrawal upend Trump's campaign?

For years, Donald Trump and his extended network have been dogged by allegations of influence peddling by foreign actors keen to make inroads with one of America's dominant political operations. No, not those allegations. These originate two and a half thousand miles south of Moscow at Cairo's state-run National Bank of Egypt where, just days before then president-elect Trump was set to be sworn into office in early 2017, employees were reportedly told to withdraw some $10 million in American currency by an account holder associated with Egypt's national intelligence service. As it happened, shortly before the suspicious withdrawal, Trump himself donated the same amount into his campaign in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election — a conspicuous congruity that helped intensify a highly classified Justice Department investigation. The probe stemmed from an earlier CIA report that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and others were involved in a high-level effort to aid the then-struggling Trump campaign as the presidential election was drawing to a close.

While the basic thrust of these explosive allegations has been public since CNN first published an exposé on the federal investigation in late 2020, a new report from The Washington Post has pushed the story back into the public eye. In it, the Post details not only the previously unknown cash withdrawal, but the scale — and the ultimate shuttering — of the Justice Department's inquiry under then-Attorney General Bill Barr. 

With these previously sub-rosa allegations in the spotlight again as Trump again runs for high office, how will this renewed scrutiny of the once-and-potentially-future president's foreign entanglements affect his current campaign? 

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What did the commentators say? 

While much of the country spent the bulk of the Trump administration focusing on alleged Russian influence, investigators pursuing these largely underreported allegations claimed the trail of Egyptian money represented the "most concrete lead" they had for foreign meddling, The New York Times said. This is the "most serious allegation of a bribe in White House history," Washington Post reporter Carol Leonning said on X. 

The allegations may be "rock bottom" in America's long history of potentially criminal political bribery, said Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch. "Do not let the matter of Trump, Egypt and the $10 million disappear," and push the Democratic-controlled Senate to "open a full-blown investigation, with efforts to subpoena Barr and other Justice Department higher-ups to explain in public why the case was dropped." Meanwhile, the allegations can "still be pursued as a civil case."

"Every American should be concerned about how this case ended," one of the Post's sources said, under condition of anonymity. "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."

Citing Sen. Robert Menendez's (D-N.J.) recent conviction for "taking bribes of cash and gold bars while acting as a middleman between New Jersey businessmen and foreign governments, including Egypt" Trump's case — if proven true — "shows a much higher level of corruption from the country," The New Republic said. At the same time, can "anything be done about it?" It's unclear given the Supreme Court's recent ruling on presidential immunity.

What next? 

Several lawmakers have begun speaking out about the need for further information: The allegations present a "creepy tale" featuring both "strange machinations to round up the $10,000,000" as well as "strange machinations to shut down the investigation," Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) said on X. "This has a very bad smell." Senate Republicans "need to hold a hearing on this explosive allegation," said Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) while Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) cited the Trump family's "history of corrupt and unconstitutional foreign payments" as reason to "hold them accountable immediately."

While the statute of limitations for federal illegal campaign contribution charges is nearly three years expired, it is "hard to imagine with reporting like this that the story ends there," MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner said.

A spokesperson for the former president denied any wrongdoing on behalf of Trump, and said to The Washington Post that their story is merely "textbook Fake News."