'The American people deserve to know': Dems demand answers from Trump on $10M Egypt donation

On August 2, Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig and Aaron C. David reported that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi "sought to give" Donald Trump "$10 million to boost his 2016 presidential campaign." The journalists also noted that in January 2017 — five days before Trump was sworn in as president — almost $10 million was withdrawn from a bank in Cairo.

A month after that article was published, Leonnig and David report that the top Democrats on the House Oversight Committee — Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) and Rep. Robert Garcia (D-California) — have sent a letter asking Trump "if he ever illegally received money from the government of Egypt, and whether money from Cairo played a role in a $10 million infusion into his 2016 run for president."

"As members of the House minority," Leonnig and David explain, "Raskin and Garcia do not have the power to subpoena documents or witnesses, and Trump is under no obligation to respond to their inquiries. But the Democrats said the public deserves answers now that Trump is running for president again."

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The House Oversight Committee is chaired by Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), a far-right Trump ally. But Raskin and Garcia can speak out even though they don't have Comer's powers.

In a letter, Raskin and Garcia said, "Surely you would agree that the American people deserve to know whether a former president — and a current candidate for president — took an illegal campaign contribution from a brutal foreign dictator. Accordingly, we request that you immediately provide the (House Oversight) Committee with information and documents necessary to assure the Committee and the American public that you never, directly or indirectly, politically or personally, received any fund from the Egyptian president or government."

Leonnig and David note that Raskin and Garcia "emphasized, in the letter, that the General Intelligence Service, Egypt's intelligence agency and a key entity under scrutiny in the Justice Department investigation of Trump, has been implicated by U.S. prosecutors in an effort to corruptly buy influence with another prominent U.S. official: former Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey."

"General Intelligence Service leaders helped fund cash bribes to Menendez through an Egyptian-American business. Menendez was convicted in July on charges of accepting bribes and acting as an unregistered foreign agent of Egypt," according to the Post reporters. He resigned from the Senate last month.

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