MSNBC prime time host Lawrence O’Donnell was forced to add additional context to a bombshell claim he made in regards to Deutsche Bank’s recent disclosures and its connection to President Trump.
O’Donnell claimed on social media and on his show Tuesday night that Deutsche Bank revealed that it was in possession of tax returns “related to” Trump or his immediate family. The filings, which were partially redacted, did not specify whose tax returns they were, but O’Donnell claimed they belonged to Trump. The Trump family has sued the bank to prevent them from releasing the documents.
[Opinion: How long before Lawrence O’Donnell has to retract his supposed Russia scoop?]
A source close to Deutsche Bank says Trump’s tax returns show he pays very little income tax and, more importantly, that his loans have Russian co-signers.
If true, that explains every kind word Trump has ever said about Russia and Putin. @TheLastWord 10pm
— Lawrence O’Donnell (@Lawrence) August 28, 2019
“The source says that Deutsche Bank is in possession of loan documents that show Donald Trump has obtained loans with co-signers, and that he would not have been able to obtain those loans without co-signers,” O’Donnell said. “The source close to Deutsche Bank says that the co-signers of Donald Trump’s Deutsche Bank loans are Russian billionaires close to Vladimir Putin.”
He went on hypothesize that if the information is accurate, it would explain Trump’s treatment towards Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which falls in line with what many Democrats have suspected for a while.
However, O’Donnell went on to clarify some of the shortcomings with the report at the end of his show.
“As I said at the beginning of this hour, and I want to say this carefully: A source close to Deutsche Bank revealed to me — a single source close to Deutsche Bank — that Donald Trump’s tax returns show that he pays very little income tax, and more importantly, that his loans with Deutsche Bank have Russian co-signers,” O’Donnell said.
“I want to stress, that’s a single source. This has not been confirmed by NBC News. I have not seen any documentation from Deutsche Bank that supports this and verifies this. This is just a single source who has revealed that to me.”
Deutsche Bank is declining to comment on Lawrence O’Donnell’s reporting that Russian oligarch’s co-signed Trump’s loans. The information came from a single source who has not seen the bank records. NBC has not seen those records and has not yet been able to verify the reporting.
— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) August 28, 2019
A producer for MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Michael Del Moro, tweeted on Wednesday that Deutsche Bank is “declining to comment” on O’Donnell’s reporting. He went on to explain that “the information came from a single source who has not seen the bank records,” and added that NBC hasn’t been able to verify the reporting.
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham issued a scathing statement in response to O’Donnell’s reporting.
“This is one of the reasons that a majority of Americans have lost trust in the media. Instead of applying ethics and standards to their reporting, journalists and left-wing outlets have weaponized the media, using it to attack and harass people with little to no regard for the truth,” Grisham told Fox News.
