He has had (large?) investments in Abu Dhabi for several years. Looking over one's shoulder, one can speculate that he was deliberately enticed and embroiled by "someone" for precisely this end, to compromise him and turn him into a tool of the enemy.
That’s very possible. I may be imagining something in retrospect, but I swear that I recall that Bloomberg’s company got involved in sharia compliant financing even before 9/11. I moved out of NYC a few months before 9/11, but I remember seeing something on the ticker at Times Square (which I used to pass by on the way home) announcing some deal he had worked with an Islamic bank.
Did this really happen or am I having a liberal-style “recovered memory”....?