Deutsche Bank Executive With Ties To Trump Loans Reportedly Commits Suicide
Thomas Bowers, the head of Deutsche Bank AG's U.S. private wealth management division, has died of a reported suicide. He was 55 years old.
Bowers' death was initially reported by David Enrich of the New York Times, and Forensic News posted Wednesday what it claims to be a screenshot of the Los Angeles County Coroner's report. The report, dated to Nov. 19, listed Bowers' cause of death as suicide by hanging.
Bowers was the supervisor of Rosemary Vlabic, who was President Donald Trump's most direct contact at Deutsche Bank for several years, including after he began his 2016 campaign. She arranged hundreds of millions of dollars in loans for him, his son, Donald Trump Jr., and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, the Times reported in March.
Among the properties Vlabic had a hand in securing financing for Trump were the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, the Doral Golf Resort in South Florida and the Old Post Office building in Washington, D.C., that The Trump Organization converted into a hotel. Bowers was among Vlabic's superiors who signed off on those deals, the Times reports.
The Times and Forensic News have both reported that Vlabic will be called to testify in congressional investigations into Trump's finances; such requests remain tied up in court as the Trump administration has sought to block subpoenas on multiple fronts.
Citing anonymous sources, Forensic News reports that the FBI had inquired about documents in Bowers' possession related to investigations into his employer, and that he "would have been the gatekeeper for financial documents for the bank’s wealthiest customers."
Deutsche Bank's controversies extend beyond Trump. Its headquarters in Germany were raided in 2018 in connection to the Panama Papers, it has been fined hundreds of millions for playing a role in Russian money laundering schemes along with $7B for fraudulent mortgage practices — a German Deutsche Bank executive hanged himself in 2014, and his son has served as a whistleblower to investigators and journalists. Deutsche Bank also lent money to Jeffrey Epstein in between his 2013 sex trafficking conviction and the explosive 2018 report that led to his eventual arrest and death in jail.
