Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Following Trump's money exposes the awful truth: Our president is a 'financial vampire'

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON

OCT 04, 2018

Americans were confronted Tuesday with a profound problem, one that challenges our commitment to accountable democratic government and justice. It is an awful truth that we must face now that the New York Times has published a richly documented, 14,000-word expose alleging decades of deeply corrupt Trump family finances.

After 18 months of interviewing people who worked for or with the Trump family and scrutinizing more than 100,000 documents, the newspaper painted a portrait “unprecedented in scope and precision” of Trump family money, including “outright fraud” that enriched the man who is now the sitting president. Those extraordinary words require us to pay close attention.

Leaked financial records reveal decades of calculated tax cheating, according to the New York Times. Father Fred Trump created 295 revenue streams to transfer money to his children, many of which appear to have broken laws. A lawyer for the president claims the published allegations are false and the reporting “extremely inaccurate,” but the reporters cite bank statements, canceled checks, invoices and tax filings that reveal the apparent evasion of close to half a billion dollars of taxes in today’s money.
In one scheme the value of properties transferred from Fred Trump to his children was discounted by 94%. Prices paid for refrigerators and stoves were inflated 46%, which enabled dishonest tax deductions while cheating people in rent-stabilized Trump apartments by justifying higher rents.

As that paper’s former tax reporter and a journalist who has covered Donald Trump for more than 30 years, this was no surprise. In 1990 I broke the story that Trump was no billionaire. He called me a liar for months, until he had to put documents in the public record showing he was worth negative-$295 million.

Not a scintilla of verifiable evidence shows that Donald is anything like as rich as he claims. Candidate Trump said he was worth more than $10 billion, but his 2017 presidential disclosure statement shows just $1.4 billion.

Yet millions of Americans believe Trump is a modern Midas. They believe the president will lift them out of hard times, after a half-century during which the super-rich flourished and their incomes were mostly flat. The awful truth is that the man in the Oval Office is not a wealth-building entrepreneur, but a financial vampire who extracts cash from enterprises, leaving behind unpaid workers, vendors and governments.

The president’s father got his start profiteering, to the tune of millions of dollars, from programs to help returning GIs get housing, which prompted President Eisenhower to throw a fit. Donald Trump is already a proven tax cheat. He admitted to sales tax fraud in 1983. He lost two income tax civil fraud trials. His own tax lawyer, Jack Mitnick, testified that Trump’s 1984 tax return was fraudulent.

Court records show how Trump and his children misled investors in failed condo projects in Baja California and Florida. Trump promised strivers who paid tens of thousands of dollars to attend Trump University that he would hand-pick a faculty and give them a better education than the best business schools. That’s not what happened. In the end, Trump gave back $25 million after insisting he had done nothing wrong.

A Trump project in New York employed hundreds of workers who were in America without permission, paid them laughably low wages and worked them beyond legal limits. He denied knowledge of the situation, but a judge said Trump’s testimony was not credible. Trump promised to show voters that his immigrant third wife, Melania, always worked legally. Business records show she worked illegally as a model.

Trump’s longtime fixer, Michael Cohen, is talking to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. So is his former campaign manager, who along with Trump’s first son and son-in-law eagerly embraced the Kremlin’s offer of campaign help. Trump’s first national security advisor has pleaded guilty to being an unregistered agent for Russian interests in Turkey. Son-in-law Jared Kushner sought to use Russian diplomatic channels to communicate secretly with Moscow.

For many Americans the truth too horrible to consider is that Donald Trump could be a criminal, a wildly successful con artist. He may well be disloyal. For those who grasp what Trump is, the corollary truth is that our Constitution’s checks and balances are failing us.

The Republican majority in Congress refuses to properly investigate Trump. Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is rushing a vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, whose legal writings indicate he might protect Trump from law enforcement.

Prosecutors, tax authorities, casino regulators and other government officials appear to have let the Trump family get away with dishonest conduct again and again. Trump has bragged that in return for campaign donations politicians always obeyed his wishes, and it seems many did.

The latest expose focuses mainly on the 1950s through the 1990s. We need to see Trump’s tax returns, and the books and records behind them, from this century. And if they show cheating, we need to enforce the laws Trump violated.


David Cay Johnston, a former Los Angeles Times and New York Times reporter, is the author of “The Making of Donald Trump” and “It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America.”


http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnston-trump-cons-and-cheats-20181004-story.html

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

Why would you and why would i think that the goose stepping trump followers care to know "old stuff" "False Stuff" ... 40+% live in an illusion world. I have coffee Saturday mornings with a small group of neighbors ... all talked a lot about the great man before the election... now if I bring up something.... "I don't discuss politics" is the reply. Certainly would not read or understand 14,000 words.

They live in a world where they think the Tariff is paid by the targeted country not by the USA citizen who buys things. I am not sure if the Trump followers have the mental capacity to understand that 2+2 is not 5. We are in a nation of inches in a metric world. We stand with Liberia and Myanmar. Myanmar is in the process of changing.

Literacy of the USA citizens is low 86% ... 125th on a list of 197 countries. USA is less literate than those easily labeled as "ignorant blacks" in Jamaica and Botswana.... ooops look who is the more ignorant ! Yep! The USA! ! We are intellectually a 3rd world nation with too many incapable of reading or understanding the 14,000 words. Trump people hear conflicting claims in the same speech and believe both and do not understand that it can not be true both ways... often not true in either claim.

https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-highest-literacy-rates-in-the-world.html

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

I don't see anything in the story that is new, except for Trump's father skirting the IRS, and Melania working illegally as a model (Oh My!. Democrats have ALWAYS been against illegal aliens working in the U.S. [sarcasm]). It was revealed that Donald Trump is not worth anywhere near the $10 Billion Dollar figure he quotes years before the election. The illegal immigrants working for Trump for low wages was widely discussed during the election and nobody cared.

This story is gonna die before the sun goes down.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

These be facts, my friend, and facts don’t die—that’s called denial.

So...you have a president called a financial vampire, and using your critical reading and critical thinking and reasoning, you say—let me quote you!—“This story is gonna die before the sun goes down!”

I guess that means you’ll back your man in giving the economy away to the super wealthy, and backing Saudi murderers, pay your taxes, suffer in peace, and vote republican!

I guess it takes all kinds...

jcs Loc: USA

What did you expect when you have the most liberal /socialist scum in charge of our schools ?

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

You read into stuff that is not there. I never said that the facts were wrong. I said that everybody already knew this stuff. At least everybody who pays attention. I get the feeling that this was all news to you.

And as far as backing Trump, I will do that as long as he keeps making more good decisions than bad decisions. My business, which petered out to nothing under Obama, has been booming ever since the Orange "buffoon" got elected. And I see that Blacks and Hispanics have the lowest unemployment rates ever recorded, and real wages are up significantly across all socio-economic strata. How can anyone argue with that? Oh! The Horrors!

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

And the fact that your man is a thief, incompetent and a proven liar—dishonest to a degree unmatched in American History, is OK with you because You Can Be Bought!

I had hoped for better from you....

yhtomit Loc: Port Land. Oregon

This looks like a big, really big what if and maybe story. Why is this man not in jail.
Answer....nothing burger.
Thank you.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Ha ,ha, ha!!!

Vietnam Vet

Anyone but Hillary...but that's another kind of crook...

yhtomit Loc: Port Land. Oregon

So why is it that this man is not in jail toowardlow?
Hmmmm....
Maybe this question is, too advanced for you?

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

Sounds like a better description for Obama. You couldn't care less if he signed a million-dollar book deal while in office, spied on the Trump campaign, paid U.S taxpayer ransom money to Iran, lied about the Iran Deal, pushed the sale of high-powered weapons to Mexican Drug Lords, let over a thousand drug dealers out of jail, let 40,000 criminal illegal aliens out of jail, lied to Americans about their healthcare over and over despite being advised not to, used the IRS to silence his political opposition, covered up what happened in Ben Ghazi, and spied on journalists. And you call Trump the thief, liar, and incompetent.

You just use these moral failings as an excuse to bash the guy you already hated in the first place before you knew anything about him.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Mueller hasn’t spoken, has he?

We’ll see after the election, won’t we?

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Baloney. You just use denial to cover the most dishonest administration in American History, with the Most Incompetent Cabinet ever, and Lyin’, stealin’, slimy trump, the worst president in US history after only a year in office!!

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

Blah, blah, blah, blah...........