Mysterious $10 Million Cash Withdrawal Triggered DOJ Investigation into Whether Trump Took Egyptian Funds

A $10 million cash withdrawal in Cairo made just days before former President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 triggered a secretive Justice Department investigation that sought to uncover whether he received financial support from Egypt’s government.

The investigation, revealed in an exclusive report by The Washington Post on Friday, focused on a $9.998 million withdrawal from a state-run Egyptian bank, which U.S. intelligence believed could have been intended to aid Trump’s campaign.

The withdrawal, made just days before Trump took office in January 2017, involved two men walking out of Cairo’s National Bank of Egypt with 200 pounds of $100 bills packed into large bags. The revelation of this transaction in 2019 intensified an already ongoing investigation into classified U.S. intelligence that suggested Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi was trying to funnel money to Trump.

The investigation, internally dubbed Team 10, had been quietly probing the possibility that Trump’s campaign benefitted from illegal foreign contributions—a violation of U.S. election laws. The probe aimed to trace the origin of the funds Trump injected into his campaign just before Election Day, matching the amount to the suspicious withdrawal in Cairo.

Despite mounting evidence and growing suspicions among investigators, the case faced significant internal resistance. Top Justice Department officials, including then-Attorney General William Barr, expressed doubts about the investigation’s validity, leading to the case being effectively shut down by mid-2019.

According to the Post’s report, Barr’s reluctance to pursue the investigation further was seen by some as part of a broader effort to prevent the DOJ from engaging in what Trump often decried as a politically motivated “witch hunt.” Barr instructed FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide “adult supervision” over the agents he reportedly said were “hell-bent” on proving their case, casting doubt on the legitimacy of their pursuit. This directive and subsequent inaction stymied efforts to secure additional bank records that investigators believed could have revealed more about Trump’s financial dealings.

By the time the investigation was formally closed in June 2020, with a Barr-appointed prosecutor citing “a lack of sufficient evidence to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” the team had not uncovered direct evidence linking Trump’s campaign to the Egyptian funds.

One official within the Justice Department said that Barr’s decision to shutter the probe was “jaw dropping” with others claiming that the case was prematurely shuttered due to concerns over the potential political ramifications of any findings rather than a lack of evidence. Either way, the probe, cloaked in secrecy until now and marred by internal disagreements, leaves key questions unanswered.

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