Donald Trump is, of course, denying the story from The New York Times that proves he is no self-made billionaire successful businessman. It took him nearly 24 hours after its publication to address claims that Trump swindled the U.S. government, and therefore the U.S. taxpayers Trump professes to care so much about, out of millions in taxes through dubious means.
“The secret of a great fortune made without apparent cause is soon forgotten, if the crime is committed in a respectable way.” https://t.co/GbZHYPsB9A
— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 3, 2018
As it turns out, he also tried to swindle his own father.
Inside that NYT story is the revelation that Trump tried to add a codicil to his father’s will that would give him complete control of the businesses he owned, which “protected Donald Trump’s portion of the inheritance from his creditors and from his impending divorce settlement with his first wife, Ivana Trump…[and] strengthened provisions in the existing will making him the sole executor of his father’s estate.”
Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire. Much of this money came through tax schemes, including instances of outright fraud.
Here are the key takeaways. https://t.co/LveDQoWYpz
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 3, 2018
His father, however, caught on. He then took steps to block his son from seizing control of his money and removed him as executor of his will.
‘As close as they were — or perhaps because they were so close — Fred Trump did not immediately confront his son. Instead he turned to his daughter Maryanne Trump Barry, then a federal judge whom he often consulted on legal matters. “This doesn’t pass the smell test,” he told her, she recalled during her deposition. When Judge Barry read the codicil, she reached the same conclusion. “Donald was in precarious financial straits by his own admission,” she said, “and Dad was very concerned as a man who worked hard for his money and never wanted any of it to leave the family.” (In a brief telephone interview, Judge Barry declined to comment.)
‘Fred Trump took prompt action to thwart his son. He dispatched his daughter to find new estate lawyers. One of them took notes on the instructions she passed on from her father: “Protect assets from DJT, Donald’s creditors.” The lawyers quickly drafted a new codicil stripping Donald Trump of sole control over his father’s estate. Fred Trump signed it immediately.
President Trump has sold himself as a self-made billionaire but our investigation found that he received more than $400 million from his father’s empire, much of it through dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud. https://t.co/yXuPHrGwHg
— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 3, 2018
Instead, Fred Trump made plans along with all four of his children to avoid paying estate taxes through illegal methods.
‘The Trumps’ plan, executed over the next decade, blended traditional techniques — such as rewriting Fred Trump’s will to maximize tax avoidance — with unorthodox strategies that tax experts told The Times were legally dubious and, in some cases, appeared to be fraudulent. As a result, the Trump children would gain ownership of virtually all of their father’s buildings without having to pay a penny of their own. They would turn the mountain of cash into a molehill of cash. And hundreds of millions of dollars that otherwise would have gone to the United States Treasury would instead go to Fred Trump’s children.’
The Failing New York Times did something I have never seen done before. They used the concept of “time value of money” in doing a very old, boring and often told hit piece on me. Added up, this means that 97% of their stories on me are bad. Never recovered from bad election call!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 3, 2018
With the documentation to back up their claims, the Times has exposed both Trump and his father, as well as the rest of his family, for amassing their wealth through fraud. Not only was Trump willing to steal from the government, he was willing to manipulate his own father, who at that time suffered from failing health and dementia, out of everything he owned and intended to leave his family.
What makes anyone believe that he wouldn’t be just as unscrupulous in his role as president?
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
