Exclusive: Feds chased suspected foreign link to Trump's 2016 campaign cash for three years - CNN

The investigation, which both predated and outlasted special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, examined whether there was an illegal foreign campaign contribution.

In a court filing last month, the Justice Department confirmed that when the special counsel's office shut down in 2019, Mueller transferred an ongoing foreign campaign contribution investigation to prosecutors in Washington.

Some of CNN's sources have confirmed that the case, which Mueller cryptically called a "foreign campaign contribution" probe, was in fact the Egypt investigation.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump 2020 campaign, said in response to CNN's questions, "President Trump has never received a penny from Egypt."

A spokesman for the Egyptian President declined to comment.

Egypt suspicions

After Trump's election win, the FBI began working with prosecutors in the DC US attorney's office to investigate the Egypt matter, according to a person familiar with the office.

"It was something that looked interesting," that person said.

According to a recent book by Andrew Weissmann, one of Mueller's senior prosecutors, the special counsel's office consisted of three principal teams: one focused on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, another on Russia's election interference, and a third on the President's attempts to obstruct justice.

Public records also show they focused on cases separate from other trial attorneys in the special counsel's office and had senior titles equivalent to other Mueller team leaders.

She is now a lawyer in private practice. Van Grack is now a Justice Department prosecutor overseeing foreign lobbying investigations, and didn't respond to a request for comment.

Mueller's team tried to understand both the $10 million contribution Trump gave to his campaign 11 days before the 2016 election and the Trump campaign's ties to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, according to sources and redacted interview records released from the Mueller investigation.

The last-minute 'loan'

By summer 2017, Mueller's office was handling the Egypt investigation gingerly, with the team of prosecutors and FBI personnel often working without sharing full details with the other teams in the office, according to multiple accounts of the office's dynamics.

Trump's top campaign officials scrambled to convince Trump to inject money, according to memos of witness interviews from the investigation and contemporaneous news reports.

Ahmad, whose aims on the investigation were cloaked in secrecy, was repeatedly present in interviews touching on both Trump's $10 million contribution to his campaign and the campaign's ties to Egypt.

Mueller's team repeatedly asked witnesses questions about Trump foreign policy campaign adviser Walid Phares and his ties to Egypt, after intelligence pointed them toward him.

Phares' assistant declined to comment.

In an initial interview with the special counsel's office, senior campaign official and White House adviser Stephen Bannon also discussed his role in setting up the meeting between Trump and Sisi.

In a session months later, Bannon was asked about Trump's $10 million contribution to his campaign, according to another recent release of Mueller's interview memos.

Bannon explained to Mueller's investigators how Trump initially resisted cutting his campaign such a large check, and that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner doubted that Trump would do so, saying, "that was not going to happen," according to Bannon.

A spokesperson for Mnuchin at the Treasury Department confirmed Bannon's description of convincing Trump to make the loan, and said that Mnuchin had no knowledge of how Trump had $10 million available to him.

Records of the special counsel's office interviews, which remain heavily redacted, do not make clear whether witnesses were asked directly about money connected to Egypt.

CNN, however, spotted Mueller team prosecutors, including Ahmad, returning to the special counsel's office minutes after the hearing ended. 

The case even landed before the Supreme Court in early 2019.

The high court ultimately declined the company's bid to block Mueller's subpoena in March 2019. 

Even then, however, the standoff between US prosecutors and the Egyptian bank ended in a stalemate. 

The bank had handed over almost 1,000 pages of documents to prosecutors, translated into English, according to redacted court records that were eventually released after the Mueller investigation concluded.

Liu told people in her office that if the investigation had produced enough evidence, Mueller would have made the decision to take additional steps, according to sources.

Mueller's foreign campaign contribution case

Mueller and the Justice Department have taken pains to keep quiet that the investigation even existed.

On paper, Mueller described the investigation with only three vague words: "Foreign campaign contribution."