Going Deeper: The Corruption of Donald Trump
Part I - The Early Years
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Note: This is the first installment of a three-part Going Deeper series that explores the corruption of Donald Trump and his family.
Donald Trump is waging a directionless war with Iran. Americans are being killed and wounded. Billions of dollars have been spent in a matter of weeks. And our weapons stockpiles are being drawn down. Not to fear, the President’s sons -- Donald Jr. and Eric -- are here. And they’re putting money into a new drone company that aims to make a pile of cash arming up America in this age of conflict.
In another era, the Trump sons’ investment would amount to a gross violation of ethical norms. “Profiteering!” would be the cry. “Conflict of interest!” But today, after so many years of Trump self-dealing, it’s causing nary a ripple in the press and, as far as I can tell, no reaction from Congress. Perhaps they’re too busy digesting all the other corruption marking the current administration.
In light of this latest outrage, I began thinking about why the Trumps’ corruption causes so little uproar. (The President is even managing to avoid accountability in the Epstein scandal and coverup.) I think the clan gets away with things because the name Trump and corruption have gone together for decades. So long, it seems, that we’ve become numb to the revelations. With this in mind, let’s pause for a moment and consider this man, the family, the unbelievable levels of corruption that got us here, and just how bad it’s gotten.
Part 1 looks at Donald’s life up until he was elected President. Take a deep breath. Here goes.
In the Beginning
Donald Trump was a spoiled kid -- the family chauffeur drove him on his newspaper route -- who grew into a pretty nasty teenager. He was such a discipline problem that at age 13, his exasperated father bundled him off to military school. While there, he hazed and bullied fellow students and cooked up lies about hitting home runs on the baseball field.
During his college years, as the Vietnam War raged, Trump managed to defer being drafted five times until doctors confirmed a questionable diagnosis of “bone spurs” on his heels, which let him out of the draft permanently. This, despite his being an avid athlete. Trump went to college at the University of Pennsylvania, where, he claims, without proof, he graduated Number One in his class. Not even close. Records indicate he didn’t even make the dean’s list.
Are you getting the idea that Trump was already a piece of work by the time he became a young man? Good. Because he was. And it was going to get worse.
A Young Fabricator About Town
Returned to New York, his eye on fortune and fame, Trump relied on his super-rich father for the fortune part and promoted himself in the press to gain some fame. At a time when he had built nothing on his own, he hoodwinked The New York Times into publishing a feature on him where he claimed to be worth $200 million. What the article failed to mention was that the Trump family business had just settled with the federal government over discrimination against Blacks who applied to rent apartments in their outer-borough complexes.
As the feds explained, applications from Black would-be renters were marked with the letter “c” for “colored.” This guaranteed they would not get an apartment. When the government tested the Trump system, Black applicants were falsely told there were no units available, but whites were subsequently given leases. Faced with scandal, Donald did what he would always do -- attempt to turn the table. In this case, he hired the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn to countersue the government for $100 million, alleging it used “Gestapo” tactics.
Here, it’s worth noting Trump’s association with Cohn, who rose to fame as a henchman in Senator Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunt hearings of the 1950s. As a private attorney Cohen’s client list was a who’s who of the New York mob. His practice was based on threats, blackmail, and intimidation. Though repeatedly indicted, he managed to skate free until he was eventually disbarred for defrauding clients.
As Cohn’s countersuit was dismissed, the Trumps quietly negotiated a deal to end their racist practices. They were required to advertise that they would rent to minority applicants, stop lying about vacancies, and submit monthly reports on their lease agreements to the Department of Justice.
Trump finally made the leap to the big time when he tricked the City of New York into believing he had paid for an option on a desirable hotel development site adjacent to Grand Central Terminal. In fact, the documents he submitted to qualify for permits were unsigned.
Although he would long brag that he was New York’s biggest developer, this was always a lie. However, he could claim some prominence when he built Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Trouble is, he couldn’t do it without a little corruption. It begins with his destruction of a department store on the site, which was demolished by crews who were undocumented immigrants paid such paltry wages that many slept overnight inside the building. Trump outraged the city when he destroyed historic artwork he had promised to preserve.
During the construction of the tower, Trump relied on mob-controlled concrete suppliers who mysteriously kept the deliveries going during a city-wide strike that halted other projects. Later, Trump would sell several apartments, apparently at a steep discount, to a mob boss’s wife. According to a report by ProPublica, in 1980s and ‘90s, the Trump Organization used middlemen to bribe city officials who lowered tax bills.
Always, Trump used lies and distortions to pump up his reputation. He numbered the floors in Trump Tower to make it seem it was ten stories higher than it really is and falsely claimed that he owned the Trump Organization when, in fact, his father still controlled it. The 1980s also saw the arrival of a character named “John Barron,” a public relations agent who would contact the reporters to alert them to the successes and conquests of Donald Trump. Barron, who was in fact Trump himself, defended Trump in public controversies and boosted his image as a super-wealthy businessman. He used another alias, “John Miller,” to pump up his social standing by saying various famous women -- Madonna and model Carla Bruni were two-- were dying to date him. Lies. All lies.
Business and Charity Abuses
Meanwhile, in Atlantic City, Trump operated casinos and consistently got into trouble with regulators. Among his violations:
Discrimination against Black and female employees -- $200,000 fine
Bribing a high-roller -- $450,000 fine
Accepting an illegal loan from his father -- $65,000 fine
Beyond breaking the rules, Trump brought a bigoted attitude to management, announcing that, “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes.” No matter who was counting the money, Trump began to drive his casinos into the ground and accumulate bankruptcies that left contractors (many were small businesses) and investors holding the bag. In 1991, it was the Taj Mahal Casino. In 1992, there came bankruptcies at two more Trump casinos and at the venerable Plaza Hotel in New York City. Many more bankruptcies would come, as Trump simply walked away from his debts and obligations. Among the businesses that collapsed were a Trump-branded regional airline, Trump steaks, Trump vodka, and Trump Magazine.
In one of his most notorious unethical business schemes, Trump created a “school” called Trump University that was supposed to train students to become real estate moguls. High-pressure sales tactics pushed vulnerable people to pay as much as $35,000 for courses that consisted of handouts describing ordinary dealmaking advice -- leverage assets, buy low, sell high. Though the “university” promised lectures from big-name experts, including Trump himself, these never materialized. A group of students sued and Trump wound up paying them $25 million in refunds.
As he was ripping off everyday people who dreamed of getting rich in real estate, Trump was also abusing a so-called charity organization called the Trump Foundation. The tax-exempt organization donated little to charity. (The board stopped meeting in 1999) In 2013 It was used it to make a $25,000 donation to a political organization boosting Pam Bondi’s campaign for reelection to the office of Florida attorney general. At the time, Bondi was considering investigating Trump University. She dropped the case.
Trump further abused the foundation by using more than $250,000 of its money to settle lawsuits and tapped the foundation for $20,0000 to purchase a six-foot-tall portrait of himself. Ultimately, the New York attorney general sued, alleging that Trump used the foundation “to advance his personal, business, and political interests in violation of federal and state law governing charities.” Trump settled the case by reimbursing the foundation with $2.8 million. Once this money was given to actual charities, the foundation was shut down.
Family Values
Donald came by his scam artist ways rather naturally. In the 1950’s, his father, Fred, was hauled before a committee of Congress that was investigating abuses in a federal housing program that was created to benefit military veterans. Trump admitted bending the rules, but insisted he broke no law. In 1961, Fred was one of ten businessmen who created a political slush fund for a mayor seeking reelection. And in the mid-1960s, he was finally caught manipulating reimbursements from a state housing program. He was barred from future projects.
As an ambitious son of a ruthless man, Trump would outdo his father, parlaying an inheritance and a shocking level of dishonesty into national fame, thanks to The Apprentice reality TV show. He also served as a role model for his children. In 2008, his daughter Ivanka and son Donald Jr. falsely claimed that 55 to 60 percent of the units in a new Manhattan condo/hotel had been sold. In fact, they had only sold 15 to 30 percent.
Why do the false claims matter? Well, the lies created the impression that demand was high and could have prompted would-be buyers to make the leap and plunk down their money. When buyers got wind of the flimflam, a bunch of them banded together to sue. In a settlement, Trump agreed to refund them 90 percent of their deposits. In a strange twist, the deal required that the plaintiffs refuse to help local authorities pursue a criminal case against the two Trump kids.
In the end, Ivanka and Donald Jr.’s SoHo scam proved that they had absorbed the family’s corrupt ethos. Their father had taught them well. There were more lessons to come on the world’s biggest stage.
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Note: Part 2 of this series will look at the Trump’s family’s self-enrichment while in office. Part 3 will look at the sweetheart deals his friends and donors have gotten. The corruption is just too much for one article.
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