Democratic senators on two relevant committees are calling for their panels to investigate allegations last month in the Washington Post about a now-closed government probe into whether Egypt funneled $10 million to Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign for president.
It’s been more than a month since the Post report was published, but so far Senate Democrats, who hold oversight and subpoena power for the upper chamber of Congress, have not taken any public steps to open an investigation into the complex set of allegations. Until now. In recent interviews, two Judiciary Committee Democrats and one Intel Committee Democrat told TPM they want their respective committees to look into the allegations.
“There are so many other issues arising, but I think that we shouldn’t let it drop,” Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told TPM. “I’m very concerned that this is something that he did.”
“What is that all about? Why is he possibly taking ten million dollars from another country? And what did he provide to them?” she continued. “So we should get to the bottom of it — among so many other things that involve him.”
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), another member of the Judiciary Committee, also told TPM that the allegations should be investigated, though he doesn’t know the specifics of what the Judiciary Committee might do.
“At this point, I do not know,” Hirono said when asked if the Judiciary Committee is planning to take any action to use their oversight or subpoena power.
The Senate Judiciary Committee told TPM it has nothing to share about a potential investigation into the Washington Post report at this time. Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) did not respond to requests for comment.
Separately, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), a member of the Intelligence Committee, told TPM “it is very important that there be further investigation.” As for next steps, Wyden punted the question to Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA).
The Senate Intelligence Committee and Warner did not return requests for comment.
Neither did Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The Post broke the story Aug. 2, though questions surrounding the 2016 Trump campaign’s relationship with Egypt have been percolating for years.
The case and questions about the relationship first came onto journalists’ radar in the form of a mysterious, partly sealed court battle at the height of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. All that could be seen through redactions was that an unknown state-owned entity was willing to shill out millions of dollars to avoid complying with a subpoena. CNN later revealed bare-bones details of the case: It involved an Egyptian state-owned bank, and had to do with an investigation into a potential illegal foreign campaign contribution that Trump may have received.
But the Washington Post story both revealed the scale of the potential scandal and raised troubling, unanswered questions.
Per the story, it all began in the final days of the 2016 campaign. Trump, in some form, provided his campaign with $10 million of his own money.
The next year, U.S. government officials were alarmed to learn of classified intelligence collected by the CIA indicating that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi had sought to transfer $10 million to Trump in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Per the Post report, investigators theorized that Trump may have given the campaign the money because he believed that Sisi would repay him the same. They found a few intriguing clues, among them: The two had met a month before, in September 2016, at the UN General Assembly.
Then in 2019, the Post reported, investigators uncovered new evidence: In January 2017, an organization tied to Egyptian intelligence had withdrawn nearly $10 million in cash from the country’s national bank, draining what the Post described as a “sizable share” of Egypt’s national foreign currency reserves.
That poured gasoline on investigators’ suspicion that Trump had received an illegal campaign boost from the Egyptian government. But later that year, the paper reported, Trump’s political appointees moved to squash the case.
Then-Attorney General Bill Barr reportedly directed D.C. U.S. Attorney Jesse Liu, a Trump appointee, to look at the underlying intelligence and decide whether to keep the investigation alive. Barr later directed another subordinate, Michael Sherwin, to take the case. Sherwin closed it in June 2020.
It all raises deep, troubling questions: Did Trump receive the $10 million? What might he have promised in exchange? How and why did his political appointees shut down the case?
Over the past several years, Egypt has been a bipartisan investor in less-than-scrupulous American politicians. Ex-Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Leader Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) resigned last month after being convicted of bribery, acting as a foreign agent, and other charges over his ties to Egypt.
Still, not everyone seems to be convinced there’s something to be investigated.
“Is there any truth to that?” Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) told TPM when asked about the possibility of Trump taking money from the Egyptian government, adding he didn’t know anything about the report and that he had only heard “rumors.”
When pressed if the Intelligence Committee is planning to take action based on the Post’s findings, Kelly said, “I wouldn’t say if we were.”
While Senate Democrats, who currently hold the majority in the upper chamber, seem reluctant to move expeditiously, or at all, to look into the allegations, minority Democrats on the House Oversight Committee launched an investigation earlier this month, sending a letter to Trump. In the letter, Democrats asked Trump, among other things, whether any money from the Egyptian government had benefited him or his campaign, to provide records about the $10 million contribution, and to disclose the names of anyone involved in arranging the alleged transfer.
But the House Democrats’ own investigation will be limited in its ability to retrieve information absent the subpoena power that comes with majority control.
