The $10 million was made in Cairo just days before former President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, prompting a secret Justice Department investigation into whether Trump received financial support from the Egyptian government. The investigation, revealed in a special report by The Washington Post on Friday, focused on $9.998 million in Egyptian state-owned banks that the U.S. government believes were intended to help the Trump campaign.

The withdrawal, which took place just days before Trump’s inauguration in January 2017, involved two men leaving Egypt’s Central Bank in Cairo with 200 pounds of $100 bills stuffed into large pockets. The revelation of the deal in 2019 came amid an ongoing investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies into allegations that Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi sought to raise money for Trump.

The investigation, dubbed Team 10, is quietly looking into the possibility that Trump’s campaign profited from illegal foreign contributions in violation of U.S. law. U.S. election laws. The investigation sought to determine the source of Trump’s campaign money ahead of Election Day, which was linked to alleged money laundering in Cairo.

Despite extensive evidence that emerged and continues to be questioned by investigators, the case was met with strong protests. Senior Justice Department officials, including then-Attorney General William Barr, expressed skepticism about the investigation, leading to the case being closed in mid-2019.

Barr’s refusal to continue the investigation was seen by some as part of an effort to prevent the Justice Department from engaging in what Trump has often described as a “witch hunt,” the Post reported. Barr ordered FBI Director Christopher Wray to provide “adult supervision” to agents whose evidence he said had “gone to hell” with the investigation, calling into question the legality of the surveillance. Those orders and subsequent inaction halted
attempts to obtain more bank records that investigators believed could provide more information about Trump’s finances.

When the investigation was officially closed in June 2020, Barr’s appointed prosecutor said there was “no evidence to support this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” and that the group had found no evidence of the Trump campaign or Egyptian money.

One Justice Department official called Barr’s decision to drop the investigation “surprising,” while others said the case was dropped prematurely because of concerns that politics could be driven by the results rather than a lack of evidence.