David Cay Johnston is the nation's expert on Donald Trump. His blog article cited below is the basis for this piece. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer at Syracuse Law, won the Pulitzer in 2001 for Beat Reporting for work on the pervasiveness of tax loopholes, has written for NY Times/Reuters/The Nation, writes books, was Board President of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and has 8 kids which leads me to question whether or not this man sleeps? Ever.
DCJ comments that corrections are needed. This UPDATE makes an effort at that. There are also added information sources that have been included. DKOS will remain mostly an unpaid "Amateur Hour" but hopefully the pro help will get this piece up closer to standards.
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Without exception, credible presidential candidates have validated credentials. They have passed F.B.I. or D.O.D. background checks. Either they are Senators or Representatives or else Generals and have already gone through the system. Or else they are governors or prominent citizens. By the conventions they all have had to submit to interviews and background checks.
Well, the operative word is "credible."
Things change big time when we get to Donald Trump. The big problem with Donald Trump is that in business dealings and licensing processes he looks to have gone twenty years mobbed up. On top of that his various loan applications and corporate borrowing patterns indicate intentional fraud.
Trump built Trump Tower with S&A Concrete, Inc. which was owned by Anthony Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambinos. This same S&A built dozens of other Trump properties. Tens of millions of dollars in contracted business. Year after year after year.
This is the same Anthony Salerno who was convicted for bid rigging, RICO violations and other crimes. He was serving a 100 year sentence on Federal racketeering convictions when a stroke took him out. I have no idea whether Donald Trump attended the funeral.
Most skyscrapers are built with steel frame construction. That's because it lasts. Trump went with the Mob for concrete construction and saved money paid out more money doing it. DCJ points out and engineers confirm that steel girder construction cost less for Manhattan skyscrapers.
Pay more to go Mob? What other presidential candidate did that?
David Cay Johnston has covered New York real estate tax law and Donald Trump's business dealings for decades. 21 Questions for Donald Trump includes the mob connections.
-- The Donald J. Trump Foundation looks to be a kick back tool. Trump hasn't put in a dime since 2006. He funnels payments by business partners through this foundation which makes it all tax free.
-- Trump University was a scam. Sued by NY State's Attorney General. Fines and penalties all around.
-- And what pay-offs passed when Trump got a $400 million tax abatement for his Grand Hyatt hotel? That was the first such hotel tax abatement in New York City.
DCJ "has covered Trump on and off for 27 years, starting with when (he) was Atlantic City bureau chief for the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1988-91 and in (his) 1992 book Temples of Chance, about how America Inc. took over casinos from Murder Inc. (He) also covered (Trump) and gave stories and ledes to others when (he) was at The New York Times 1995-2008. And (he has) written about (Trump) since for various outlets."
"Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business." Also described as "how casinos went from Bugsy Siegel to Donald Trump." Or considering the S&A Concrete dealings, how Bugsy's successors formed interesting business alliances.
The key to this Trump alliance goes to Roy Cohn. From DCJ: "why did Trump employ the notorious Roy Cohn as his lawyer at a time when Cohn also represented Fat Tony Salerno (Genovese) and Paul Castellano (Gambino)."
That's the Roy Cohn who had been Chief Counsel for Senator Joseph McCathy's anti-communist witch hunts. A fanatical right winger. Then easily, immediately converted over to serving as a big money lawyer for the Genoveses and Gambinos.
The Mob and the big wingers share a paranoid world view together with disdain for abiding by laws, which as we all know are for Little People.
All that old Mob stuff and the loan applications are fair game for federal security interviews and subsequent investigations.
F.B.I. does background checks at the point where delegates are allocated for the national conventions. Just saying.
Management
Trump has a record for executive management from his casino company. This guy wants to run the country? Really? He ran the single worst managed company in the United States.
Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City was ranked 496 of 496 for "Most Admired Companies of 1999" as ranked by Fortune magazine. Dead last. And that was when AC gambling was still a viable business.
He and Carlie Fiorino made a lot of money over the years. That was based on selling themselves. Fiorino took a company that had ranked 5th in the country and ran it down steadily through her tenure.
Eric Alterman hit the nail pretty hard on why we don't hear the real histories. What Liberal Media?: The Truth About Bias and the News supplies examples by the score for conservative cover-up and support for long-term lies.
Basic fact when you go to the flat research: Trump and Fiorino lost a lot of money for investors. The billions of gambling profits at the height of the AC years? Covered over with
Trump as a Diversion?
National conventions are for candidates who pass the security checks. That's not going to be Donald Trump. So what's he doing throwing out millions of dollars soaking up bandwidth?
One clue: his campaign manager is Corey Lewandowski.
He was not a Trump employee. He's not out of real estate. Not a New York lawyer. Not as bundler.
What he is is a Koch system, Bircher world view lifer. Straight out of Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs' money funnel.
Senior Political Adviser
The Trump Organization
January 2015 – Present (7 months)New York -- Washington, DC
National Director of Voter Registration
Americans for Prosperity
March 2014 – January 2015 (11 months)
East Coast Regional Director
Americans for Prosperity
June 2008 – March 2014 (5 years 10 months)
Director, Public Affairs
Schwartz MSL
September 2004 – July 2012 (7 years 11 months)
Ad Biz guy with no GOTV organization work, no experience with delegate mechanics, never been to a convention. Gunning the engine for a grassroots/astroturf crew? Sounds more like it.
Trump paid $50 a head for cheering actors to swell his progress at the announcement show. I'd expect that was a Lewandowski idea.
The Kochs have a plant at the center of the Trump campaign.
Their favorites go to Wallker, Jindal, and the usual party line suspects. If they thought Trump was viable, you wouldn't see Lewandowski skewing the show to race-baiting immigration slams.
What is not clear is how this Trump phenomenon is going to help the Koch candidates.
Lewandowski was sent in early. So you know this was planned. And the Koch assets from AFP to the Limbaugh radio show pump Trump as a top priority.
Where they want to go with it, I have no idea. Trump's disruptions favor the money candidates. We will see soon enough what they are planning.
Meanwhile, imagine if Hillary had so much as shared a lunch with "Fat Tony" Salerno?
The game is rigged? What else? That much we understand going in.