Democratic senators are calling for a probe of Trump's dealings in Azerbaijan

Thomson Reuters

A group of senior Democratic US senators has asked the Treasury Department and the attorney general's office to investigate President Donald Trump's alleged business dealings in Azerbaijan, which they say may have violated US sanctions against Iran.

Senators Diane Feinstein of California, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee; Ben Cardin of Maryland, ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee; and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, ranking member of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, issued the appeal on March 30.

They said their concerns were raised by an article in The New Yorker magazine entitled Donald Trump's Worst Deal, which describes the Trump Organization's business dealings with Azerbaijani Transport Minister and oligarch Ziya Mammadov.

Mammadov is alleged to have ties with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is under US sanctions for supporting terrorism.

The senators noted that, although Trump's firm withdrew from a proposed deal to build the Baku Tower skyscraper, "serious questions remain unanswered about the Trump Organization's potential criminal liability."

Trump has declined to divest himself of his business interests or to place them in a blind trust and, unlike all presidents and presidential candidates since the 1970s, he has refused to disclose his tax returns.

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