It should have been huge news. Donald Trump’s Justice Department thwarted a federal investigation into an alleged $10 million Egyptian bribe to the Republican president in 2017, the Washington Post reported early last month. The bombshell report, published on Aug. 2, got significant attention on social media, but there was limited coverage in the rest of the mainstream media.
It’s not entirely clear why. The story has all the makings of a colorful drama, not to mention Trump is currently the Republican presidential nominee. Per the Post, less than a week before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service withdrew $10 million from a Cairo bank and placed the cash in two big bags, weighing 200 pounds total.
Federal investigators learned of the withdrawal in 2019, which “intensified a secret criminal investigation that had begun two years earlier with classified U.S. intelligence indicating that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi sought to give Trump $10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign,” the Washington Post reported. Such a donation would be illegal under US law, which bars candidates from taking foreign funds. …..more
