5 days before Donald #Trump became president in Jan 2017, a manager at a bank branch in Cairo received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the Egyptian #intelligence service. It asked the bank to “kindly withdraw” nearly $10M from the organization’s account — all in #cash.

Inside the state-run National Bank of #Egypt, employees were soon busy placing bundles of $100 bills into 2 large bags, acc/to records from the bank.

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4 men arrived & carried away the bags, which #US ofcls later described in sealed court filings as weighing a combined 200 pounds & containing a sizable share of #Egypt’s reserve of US currency.

Federal investigators learned of the withdrawal…early in 2019. The discovery intensified a secret #criminal investigation that had begun 2 yrs earlier w/ #classified US #intelligence indicating that President Abdel Fatah El-#Sisi sought to give #Trump $10M to boost his 2016 presidential campaign.

#law

Since receiving the #intelligence about #Sisi, the #Justice Dept had been examining whether money moved from Cairo to #Trump, potentially violating federal #law that bans US candidates from taking foreign funds. Investigators had also sought to learn if money from Sisi might have factored into Trump’s decision in the final days of his run for the White House to inject his campaign with $10M of *his own money*.

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…Within months of learning of the withdrawal, #prosecutors & #FBI agents were blocked by top #DOJ officials from obtaining bank records they believed might hold critical evidence, according to interviews w/people familiar w/the case as well as documents & contemporaneous notes of the investigation. The case ground to a halt by the fall of 2019 as #Trump’s then-AG, William P. #Barr, raised doubts about whether there was sufficient evidence to continue the probe of Trump.

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The behind-the-scenes drama played out during an especially tense time for the #DOJ, w/ #Trump accusing the agency of pursuing a politically biased “witch hunt” against him in its probe of #Russia #ElectionInterference, his appointees seeking to rein in investigators they saw as partisan, & some career supervisors growing wary of plunging the agency into yet another #legal battle w/the then-president.

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#Barr directed #JessieLiu, the #Trump-appointed US attorney in DC, to personally examine the #classified intelligence to evaluate if further investigation was warranted. Barr later instructed #FBI Director #ChristopherWray to impose “adult supervision” on FBI agents Barr described as “hell-bent” on pursuing Trump’s records, acc/to people familiar w/the exchange. It is unclear what if any actions Wray, who was also appointed by Trump, took in response.

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In June of 2020, the prosecutor #Barr appointed to take over the office leading the case closed the probe, citing “a lack of sufficient evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt.”

That conclusion belied the months of internal disagreements over whether investigators had been allowed to go far enough in seeking that #evidence.

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“Every American should be concerned about how this case ended,” said one of the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the internal dissension. “The #Justice Dept is supposed to follow evidence wherever it leads — it does so all the time to determine if a #crime occurred or not."

A spox for #Trump’s campaign did not answer a list of questions from The Post, instead referring to this story as “textbook Fake News.”

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Unbeknownst to the public, during the same period, #DOJ ofcls were investigating whether #Trump had received help from the govt of another foreign country — #Egypt.

In the years since the Egypt case was closed, the #Sisi regime’s ambitions to #influence senior U.S. government officials have been laid bare by the #bribery conviction of Sen. #BobMenendez (D-NJ), the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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