Manafort Lender Asked About Pentagon Job After Trump Win, Lawmaker Says

• April 12 2018
• Andrew Martin

Banker Stephen Calk inquired about a Defense Department job days after Donald Trump won the presidential election, Representative Elijah Cummings said.

Banker Stephen Calk, whose Chicago-based Federal Savings Bank extended loans to Donald Trump’s onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort, inquired about a Defense Department position days after Trump won the 2016 presidential election, according to Representative Elijah Cummings.

Cummings, in a statement, cited information from the Defense Department that Calk had discussed employment there.

In a letter to Calk dated Thursday, Cummings asked whether the bank made up to $16 million in loans to Manafort in exchange for alleged promises to name him to a high-level position in the new administration, and requested communications with Manafort and others related to Trump’s campaign staff.

The Army’s chief of staff “had the opportunity to engage Mr. Calk on November 16, 2016, when he provided remarks at a Business Executives for National Security (BENS) luncheon in Chicago," the Defense Department had said, according to Cummings’s statement. The department also reported that Army administrative personnel recalled receiving a telephone call from Calk in November 2016 “regarding the confirmation process in general.”