Donald Trump‘s 2024 campaign rebuffed the inspiration for the latest investigation that House Democrats have opened up against the former president as he runs another campaign for the White House.
House Oversight Committee Democrats announced this week that they were looking into whether the Department of Justice (DOJ) improperly shut down in 2020 an inquiry into a potential $10 million bribe to Trump from Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in the run-up to the 2016 election, citing concerns about a report on the matter that The Washington Post published roughly one month ago.
Stephen Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, delivered a defiant response when CNBC asked for comment on a letter dated Tuesday in which House Democrats asked Trump to provide answers to a number of questions about whether the former president accepted any payments from Egypt’s government.
“This is textbook Fake News,” Cheung said, repeating a statement he initially gave in response to the Washington Post report. “The investigation referenced found no wrongdoing and was closed. None of the allegations or insinuations being reported on have any basis in fact,” he added. “The media is consistently played for suckers by Deep State Trump-haters and bad faith actors peddling hoaxes and shams.”
The Washington Post article claimed that top DOJ officials blocked FBI agents from obtaining records for an inquiry into whether a $10 million bribe from Egypt happened and factored into Trump’s decision to infuse his campaign with a similar amount of money. The report said Michael Sherwin, the acting U.S. attorney who closed the case in 2020, insisted he closed down the probe because of a lack of evidence.
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The article noted former FBI Director Robert Mueller, who led the Trump-Russia investigation as special counsel, had also spearheaded the Egypt assignment until it was taken over by prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D.C. Trump has long disparaged the Russia collusion probe, along with many others, as being part of a “witch hunt” to undermine his campaigns and presidency.
House Democrats, who are currently in the minority and lack subpoena power, have pushed for more investigations into Trump while they fought back against GOP-led inquiries into President Joe Biden. When House Republicans recently unveiled their impeachment report, detailing millions of dollars in foreign payments to the Biden family and its associates, they released a counter-memo defending him.