“Not a scintilla of verifiable evidence shows that
Donald is anything like as rich as he claims.”
----tRUMP
historian David Cay Johnston
Caesar
Disgustus is a fraud and a sham. Many of us have known this for
years our understanding of the 'man' having been informed by the
reporting of tax authority David Cay Johnston. Johnston has been
reporting on Disgustus for the better part of three decades now and,
along with Tony Swartz author of “The
Making of The Deal”, one
of the people who know our 'president' best.
Writing
in the Los Angeles Times,
Johnston
had this to say in the wake of a blistering 14,000 word article that
appeared last week in The
New York Times
about the nature of the tRUMP 'fortune', and the origins of Donald's
wealth. The New
York Times reported
that Disgustus' father, Fred, funneled the eqivalent in today's
dollars of over 413 million dollars to his son through the creation
and use of over 295 shell companies designed to transfer wealth
without paying estate taxes. It is clear, from the record, that the
son squandered most of this money compelling his father to repeatedly
step in and rescue the son over one of his many financial debacles.
Here
is Johnston's take on the New
York Times report:
“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.” (1)(2)
From the days when
Disgustus' grandfather laid the foundation for the family fortune
running a series of whore houses on the West Coast and Alaska,
through his daddy's plundering public housing for returning G.I's and
his close business ties to organized crime, to the well documented
tax evasions it is clear that the tRUMPs have succeeded on the backs
of all the rest of us. There is no reason to assume that Donald had
an epiphany any time during his lifetime. It just isn't in him. No
dollar is to be left ungrubbed. Why then assume that the behavior
has ceased? It is time to lift the casket on these blood-sucking
vampires and reveal to all the world how they amassed their money and
how Donald the 'genius' has squandered it.
“An Br'er Putin, he jus' laugh and
laugh”
Impeach and
Imprison.
_______________
- Johnston, David Cay. “Following Trump's money exposes an awful truth: Our President is a 'financial vampire'. http://latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-johnston-trump-cons-and-cheats-20181004-story-html.
- 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.”
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