This falls squarely in the “a lie travels halfway around the world before the truth can get its trousers on” category.
Last week there was a report in a German trade magazine, Manager Magazin, that the German financial regulatory authority, BaFin, had flagged one or more Deutsche Bank accounts used by Jared Kushner’s real estate investment groups.
The story was picked up by Huffington Post and other like-minded outlets and repeated by anyone with an anti-Trump grudge.
The bank discovered the troubling Kushner company transactions after an internal audit ordered by board President Paul Achleitner, according to the German publication, Manager Magazin, in an article first reported and translated by Mother Jones magazine.
“Achleitner’s internal detectives were embarrassed to deliver their interim report regarding real estate tycoon [Jared] Kushner to the [German] financial regulator BaFin,” stated the article, according to Mother Jones. “Their finding: There are indications that Donald Trump’s son-in-law or persons or companies close to him could have channeled suspicious monies through Deutsche Bank as part of their business dealings.”
Now Deutsche Bank is saying none of this is true:
“It is wrong to assert that Deutsche Bank supplied the German financial supervisory authority BaFin with a report stating that the real estate investor Jared Kushner or companies or persons associated with him may have channeled suspect funds via Deutsche Bank when executing their transactions,” Deutsche Bank said.
“We are taking legal action regarding this reporting,” the bank said.
This is just another day ending in “y” in the era of fake news. A bogus, unsourced account gets picked up and distributed. Eventually, the truth catches up but 90% of the people who see the fake story never see the retraction. So falsity lives on as truth.
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