Donald Trump’s grandfather came to America to avoid serving in Germany’s military. He ended up providing hotels that offered a hot meal and women. Then, came POTUS’ father, who was weaseling around the New Jersey real estate market. The president is a master con artist, so it probably will not come as a great surprise his children are following in his footsteps.
Journalist Andrea Bernstein has written a book American Oligarchs: The Kushners, The Trumps And The Marriage Of Money And Power. She delved into the Trump empire, including the younger crop of Trumps.
It turned out that Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump, Jr. were involved in a scheme to sell luxury New York condominiums/hotels. What was crucial in this case was that the pair “knew they were lying.”
A criminal investigation into Trump SoHo was dropped in 2011. Bernstein found emails that proved the pair both knowingly used figures to indicate the units were selling faster than they actually were.
The president has always pitted his children against one another. Pundits have suggested that each of these oldest two has been vying to ascend to the presidency after their father leaves.
In 2006, Donald Trump showed his lower Manhattan 46-story property Trump Soho in his reality TV show. This time he bragged, according to The Guardian:
‘[H]is brilliant $370m work of art will be an awe-inspiring masterpiece.’
Interest in Trump Soho dropped like a rock after people found out that one of Trump’s partners had a criminal past. Felix Sater had been born in Russia but committed his crimes here.
After perusing the information about the Soho, The New York Times reported:
‘Only 15% to 30% had been sold by the start of 2009.’
Yet, that following June, Ivanka commented to Reuters that 60 percent of the units had been sold. Unfortunately, her brother had made a statement to The Real Deal magazine that 55 percent of the units has been sold.
When the news escaped, people who had purchased Trump SoHo units claimed they had been cheated by the Trump’s inflated numbers. The Manhattan DA’s office investigated these allegations and pondered whether these acts constituted a crime.
 The ProPublica wrote about these emails on its website in 2017, which is where Bernstein found them:
‘[They] showed a coordinated, deliberate and knowing effort to deceive buyers. In one email, the Trumps discussed how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers. Because the sales levels had been overstated at the beginning of the sales process, any statement showing a lower level could reveal the untruths.’
In one email, the Trump family children made a joke about the crime:
‘In another email, according to a person who read them, the Trumps worried that a reporter might be on to them. In yet another email chain that included Don Jr and Ivanka, the younger generation of Trumps issued the email equivalent of a knowing chuckle, saying that nobody would ever find them out, because only people on the email chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception.’
One individual who also saw the emails said:
‘There was ‘no doubt’ that the Trump children ‘approved, knew of, agreed to, and intentionally inflated the numbers to make more sales.’
Another person who saw the emails noted:
‘They knew it was wrong. It couldn’t have been more clear they lied about the sales and knew they were lying.’
A third individual said, Bernstein wrote:
‘Yet another said, “I was shocked by the words Ivanka used.” Was there any doubt the Trumps knew they were lying and that it was wrong? ‘Ten thousand percent no.”‘
Featured image is a screenshot via YouTube.
The Mueller Report Adventures: In Bite-Sizes on this Facebook page. These quick, two-minute reads interpret the report in normal English for busy people. Mueller Bite-Sizes uncovers what is essentially a compelling spy mystery. Interestingly enough, Mueller Bite-Sizes can be read in any order.
