House Democrats launch investigation into allegations Trump accepted $10 million bribe from Egyptian president

House Democrats — taking a page from their Republican colleagues — say they are launching an investigation into allegations that President Trump received a $10 million bribe from the Egyptian government in 2016 and that the Justice Department covered it up at the time. The investigation was announced by the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin.

The accusation stems from a Washington Post report that U.S. intelligence officials received information that Trump received $10 million in cash shortly before the 2016 election that was then injected into the campaign. Shortly after Trump met with Egyptian President El-Sisi in September 2016, the then-candidate announced he would spend $10 million of his own money on the campaign.

“A recent report in the Washington Post has raised new suspicions that you accepted a $10 million bribe from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. … Surely you agree that the American people deserve to know whether a former president — and current presidential candidate — accepted an illegal campaign contribution from a brutal foreign dictator,” Mr. Raskin wrote to the former president, noting that in 2017, Egyptian intelligence agencies withdrew nearly $10 million from a state-linked bank.

He and the top Democrat on one of the committee’s subcommittees are demanding that Trump turn over all “information and documents necessary” to investigate the allegations.

Mr. Raskin argues that it is possible that Mr. Trump and his Justice Department officials took action to shut down the investigation into the allegations, which had been passed on from the intelligence community to law enforcement investigators. The senior official writes that then-U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Jessie Liu, was prepared to issue subpoenas as part of the investigation but changed her mind after meeting with Mr. Trump’s attorney general, William Barr.

Just months later, Ms. Liu was forced out of government by the Trump administration after being deemed insufficiently loyal to the 45th president. Specifically, according to Axios, administration officials were angry that she had not charged former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

“The serious and specific allegations raised in the Washington Post report — both that you received a $10 million bribe from the President of Egypt and that your political appointees at the Justice Department blocked an ongoing investigation into that potential bribe — now compel our Committee to seek additional information to clarify this matter,” Mr. Raskin wrote to Trump.

Mr. Raskin says the Egyptian government invested heavily in Mr. Trump because he was thought to be more likely to be positive about Mr. el-Sisi, who took power in a military coup after the Arab Spring. Mr. Raskin points out that Mr. Trump has paid Egypt almost $200 million in military aid, even as his government has been accused of human rights abuses.

Egypt has already been embroiled in one corruption scandal in Washington in the past few months, with the indictment and conviction of Senator Menendez. The longtime New Jersey politician was found guilty by a Manhattan jury in July of accepting bribes in the form of gold bars, cash and a luxury car in exchange for favorable treatment for Mr. El-Sisi’s government from his position as chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Over the past two years, the Oversight Committee has become a corruption investigation committee, and Republicans on the committee have used their subpoena power to uncover what they say is at least $20 million sent to members of President Biden’s family by individuals and business interests overseas.

The panel has also been conducting an impeachment inquiry into Mr. Biden since September 2023. The investigation largely petered out after the committee chairman, Rep. James Comer, sent criminal complaints to the Justice Department over what he called a “peddling scheme” by the Biden family.