Federal prosecutors have charged a Turkish bank with ties to a former client of President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in connection with an alleged scheme to evade sanctions on Iran, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. The six-count indictment alleges that Turkiye Halk Bankasi AS (Halkbank) was part of a conspiracy to give Tehran access to billions of dollars in defiance of sanctions that it concealed from U.S. regulators. Reports last week said that in 2017, Trump pressured then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to help convince the Justice Department to drop a criminal case against Turkish-Iranian gold trader Reza Zarrab, who was himself charged in a sanctions-evasion scheme and represented by Giuliani. Zarrab eventually pleaded guilty and testified against Mehmet Hakan Atilla, who headed international banking at Halkbank, also claiming Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was aware of the laundering effort.