Dear John,

When a president can be bought by a foreign government, it puts our entire democracy at risk. That's why we need to know: Did Egypt give Trump’s 2016 campaign a $10 million bribe?

The FBI started an investigation into $10 million that left a state-run Egyptian bank, just as Donald Trump found $10 million to loan to his campaign. But before the investigation was completed, Trump’s Attorney General Bill Barr shut it down.

We may not know (yet) where Trump’s $10 million came from, or where Egypt’s $10 million went, but we do know what Egypt stood to gain from investing in Trump’s campaign. Each year, the U.S. sends Egypt up to $1.3 billion worth of “foreign military financing,” which is mostly used to purchase weapons from the United States.

U.S. law, however, requires withholding from $85 to $320 million if Egypt fails to meet certain human rights requirements, including democratic reforms and releasing political prisoners. As president, Trump restored $195 million in military aid to Egypt in 2018, despite a worsening record on human rights.

Was this a quid pro quo, with Egypt secretly funneling $10 million to Trump’s campaign to grease the wheels for nearly $200 million in military funding? The FBI had enough questions to open an investigation, but Attorney General Barr promptly swept it under the rug.

Could Trump have granted military support, based not on Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi’s adherence to human rights and democratic principles, but on El Sisi’s support for Trump’s own presidential campaign?

We may never know, unless the Oversight Committees in the House and Senate pick up the investigation the FBI dropped under Attorney General Bill Barr. Tell Congress to investigate Egypt’s possible $10 million bribe to Trump now.

Human rights conditions were abysmal when Trump restored Egypt’s funding in 2018. That year, Amnesty International said it was “more dangerous to criticize the government in Egypt than at any time in the country’s recent history,” as El-Sisi imprisoned hundreds of political activists, journalists, artists, comics, human rights advocates, members of the opposition, and football fans, just for criticizing his government.

In contrast, the Biden administration has been critical of Egypt’s record, withholding $85 million in military aid in 2023, when Egypt jailed more than three times as many political prisoners (5,000) as it released (1,600). Saying “That’s one step forward, and three steps back,” Senator Chris Murphy called for going further and withholding the full $320 million.

Could Trump’s expansion of U.S. military funding for Egypt have been related in any way to the $10 million that found its way into his campaign? It would be in line with Trump’s approach to military funding for Ukraine, as he demonstrated in his “perfect” phone call to President Zelensky in 2019, pressing him to “do me a favor” and dig up some dirt on Hunter Biden.

Did Trump involve Egypt in a pay-for-play scheme? Perhaps he did not. But we may never know the truth, unless Congress re-opens the investigation that was never completed under Barr’s old boss.

Tell the House and Senate Oversight Committees to investigate the possibility of a $10 million bribe from Egypt to Donald Trump in 2015.

Thank you for calling for a full accounting of what happened to that mysterious $10 million.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action