I have covered Donald Trump off and on for 27 years —
including breaking the story that in 1990, when he claimed to be worth $3
billion but could not pay interest on loans coming due, his bankers put his net
worth at minus $295 million. And so I have closely watched what Trump does and
what government documents reveal about his conduct.
Reporters, competing Republican candidates, and
voters would learn a lot about Trump if they asked for complete answers to
these 21 questions.
So, Mr. Trump…
1. You call yourself an “ardent philanthropist,” but
have not donated a dollar to The Donald J. Trump Foundation since 2006. You’re
not even the biggest donor to the foundation, having given about $3.7 million
in the previous two decades while businesses associated with Vince McMahon’s
World Wrestling Entertainment gave the Trump Foundation $5 million. All the
money since 2006 has come from those doing business with you.
How does giving away other people’s money, in what
could be seen as a kickback scheme, make you a philanthropist?
2. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman
successfully sued you, alleging your Trump University was an “illegal
educational institution” that charged up to $35,000 for “Trump Elite”
mentorships promising personal advice from you, but you never showed up and
your “special” list of lenders was photocopied from Scotsman Guide, a magazine
found at any bookstore.
Why did you not show up?
3. You claimed The Learning Annex paid you a $1
million speaking fee, but on Larry King Live, you acknowledged the fee was
$400,000 and the rest was the promotional value.
Since you have testified under oath that your public
statements inflate the value of your assets, can voters use this as a guide, so
whenever you say $1, in reality it is only 40 cents?
4. The one-page financial statement handed out at
Trump Tower when you announced your candidacy says you’ve given away $102
million worth of land.
Will you supply a list of each of these gifts, with
the values you assigned to them?
5. The biggest gift you have talked about appears to
be an easement at the Palos Verdes, California, golf course bearing your name
on land you wanted to build houses on, but that land is subject to landslides
and is now the golf course driving range.
Did you or one of your businesses take a tax
deduction for this land that you could not build on and do you think anyone
should get a $25 million tax deduction for a similar self-serving gift?
6. Trump Tower is not a steel girder high rise, but
58 stories of concrete.
Why did you use concrete instead of traditional steel
girders?
7. Trump Tower was built by S&A Concrete, whose
owners were “Fat” Tony Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family, and Paul
“Big Paul” Castellano, head of the Gambinos, another well-known crime family.
If you did not know of their ownership, what does
that tell voters about your management skills?
8. You later used S&A Concrete on other Manhattan
buildings bearing your name.
Why?
9. In demolishing the Bonwit Teller building to make
way for Trump Tower, you had no labor troubles, even though only about 15
unionists worked at the site alongside 150 Polish men, most of whom entered the
country illegally, lacked hard hats, and slept on the site.
How did you manage to avoid labor troubles, like
picketing and strikes, and job safety inspections while using mostly non-union
labor at a union worksite — without hard hats for the Polish workers?
10. A federal judge later found you conspired to
cheat both the Polish workers, who were paid less than $5 an hour cash with no
benefits, and the union health and welfare fund. You testified that you did not
notice the Polish workers, whom the judge noted were easy to spot because they
were the only ones on the work site without hard hats.
What should voters make of your failure or inability
to notice 150 men demolishing a multi-story building without hard hats?
11. You sent your top lieutenant, lawyer Harvey I.
Freeman, to negotiate with Ken Shapiro, the “investment banker” for Nicky
Scarfo, the especially vicious killer who was Atlantic City’s mob boss,
according to federal prosecutors and the New Jersey State Commission on
Investigation.
Since you emphasize your negotiating skills, why
didn’t you negotiate yourself?
12. You later paid a Scarfo associate twice the value
of a lot, officials determined.
Since you boast that you always negotiate the best
prices, why did you pay double the value of this real estate?
13. You were the first person recommended for a
casino license by the New Jersey Attorney General’s Division of Gaming
Enforcement, which opposed all other applicants or was neutral. Later it came
out in official proceedings that you had persuaded the state to limit its
investigation of your background.
Why did you ask that the investigation into your
background be limited?
14. You were the target of a 1979 bribery
investigation. No charges were filed, but New Jersey law mandates denial of a
license to anyone omitting any salient fact from their casino application.
Why did you omit the 1979 bribery investigation?
15. The prevailing legal case on license denials
involved a woman, seeking a blackjack dealer license, who failed to disclose
that as a retail store clerk she had given unauthorized discounts to friends.
In light of the standard set for low-level license
holders like blackjack dealers, how did you manage to keep your casino license?
16. In 1986 you wrote a letter seeking lenient
sentencing for Joseph Weichselbaum, a convicted marijuana and cocaine
trafficker who lived in Trump Tower and in a case that came before your older
sister, Judge Maryanne Trump Barry of U.S. District Court in Newark, New
Jersey, who recused herself because Weichselbaum was the Trump casinos and
Trump family helicopter consultant and pilot.
Why did you do business with Weichselbaum, both
before and after his conviction?
17. Your first major deal was converting the decrepit
Commodore Hotel next to Grand Central Station into a Grand Hyatt. Mayor Abe
Beame, a close ally of your father Fred, gave you the first-ever property tax
abatement on a New York City hotel, worth at least $400 million over 40 years.
Since you boast that you are a self-made billionaire,
how do you rationalize soliciting and accepting $400 million of welfare from
the taxpayers?
18. You say that your experience as a manager will
allow you to run the federal government much better than President Obama or
Hillary Clinton. On Fortune Magazine’s 1999 list of the 496 most admired
companies, your casino company ranked at the bottom – worst or almost worst in
management, use of assets, employee talent, long-term investment value, and
social responsibility. Your casino company later went bankrupt.
Why should voters believe your claims that you are a
competent manager?
19. Your Trump Plaza casino was fined $200,000 for
discriminating against women and minority blackjack dealers to curry favor with
gambler Robert Libutti, who lost $12 million, and who insisted he never asked
that blacks and women be replaced.
Why should we believe you “love” what you call “the
blacks” and the enterprise you seek to lead would not discriminate again in the
future if doing so appeared to be lucrative?
20. Public records (cited in my book Temples of
Chance) show that as your career took off, you legally reported a negative
income and paid no income taxes as summarized below:
1975
Income: $76,210
Tax Paid: $18,714
1976
Income: $24,594
Tax Paid: $10,832
1977
Income: $118,530
Tax Paid: $42,386
1978
Income: ($406,379)
Tax Paid: $0
1979
Income: ($3,443,560)
Tax Paid: $0
Will you release your tax returns? And if not, why
not?
21. In your first bestselling book, The Art of the
Deal, you told how you had not gotten much work done on your first casino, so
you had crews dig and fill holes to create a show. You said one director of
your partner, Holiday Inns, asked what was going on. “This was difficult for me
to answer, but fortunately this board member was more curious than he was
skeptical,” you wrote.
Given your admission that you used deception to hide
your failure to accomplish the work, why should we believe you now?
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