San Diego’s Axos Financial institution, Nonetheless Lending to Trump, Sees Web site, Inventory Go Down

The web site of the San Diego-based on-line financial institution scrutinized for its loans to Donald Trump was down for at the very least 5 hours Thursday — and so was the inventory value of its mother or father.

A bit of earlier than midday, a customer support rep for Axos Financial institution confirmed “an across-the-board outage” — however the web site was restored by 12:40 p.m.

Thursday morning, a 3,800-word story was posted by The Washington Put up below the headline “Trump wanted $225 million. A bit of-known financial institution got here to the rescue.”

“Gregory Garrabrants, a GOP donor and CEO of on-line Axos Financial institution, accepted the loans after the previous president’s principal lender had lower ties,” the paper added.

It wasn’t information that Axos lends to the previous president — since Newsweek and Forbes in March 2022 had reported massive real-estate loans to Trump’s firm.

However Put up reporter Michael Kranish visited the College Metropolis places of work of Axos Financial institution and interviewed its president, Garrabrants, for his first public feedback on the Trump loans.

Shares in Axos Monetary, the Las Vegas-based holding firm of Axos Financial institution, closed at $46.35 — down 1.7% from the day before today.

Axos Monetary was scheduled to report 4th quarter earnings on Thursday after the market closed. Yr-to-date, AX inventory has risen by 17.85%, in accordance with tipranks.com. An earnings name was set for two p.m. Pacific.

Axos Financial institution didn’t instantly reply to Instances of San Diego requests for remark.

“The Axos loans to Trump have been important to stabilizing his post-presidential funds and enabling him to mount the marketing campaign that now has him main the GOP pack for the 2024 presidential nomination, in accordance with disclosure information, mortgage paperwork and monetary specialists,” The Put up reported.

Garrabrants, 51, instructed the Put up that the Trump offers totaling a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} had nothing to do along with his Republican politics.

“He mentioned he made the loans as a result of they are going to be worthwhile for his financial institution, including that he didn’t agree with different bankers who stayed away from Trump as a result of allegations that he had incited the riot or issues about his honesty,” the Put up mentioned.

It was “not my job or my position” to guage Trump’s actions, Garrabrants was quoted as saying.

Garrabrants donated $9,600 to assist Trump’s 2020 marketing campaign, the Put up added, however mentioned he’s by no means met the previous president, dealing as an alternative with Trump’s son Eric, the chief vice chairman of the Trump Group.

Garrabrants additionally rejected claims by New York Lawyer Common Letitia James, who’s investigating Trump, that he had sought to keep away from offering sure monetary info when making use of for Axos loans, the Put up mentioned.

“He by no means refused any info we requested for,” Garrabrants instructed the Put up. “We requested for a collection of things in a selected format … and he delivered the objects within the particular format we requested for.”

The Put up mentioned Garrabrants declined to remark when requested if he or the financial institution had been contacted by anybody from James’s workplace relating to her case in opposition to Trump.