Donald Trump is not a self-made billionaire. He is the pampered scion of a shrewd and ruthless patriarch whose millions fund his son’s business empire to this day.
Donald Trump has long promoted himself as a self-made billionaire and great deal maker. In truth he is neither. He is a fraud whose father bailed him out of failed business deals many times over while providing Donald with a steady stream of unfathomable income. In short, without Fred Trump‘s business acumen and cash there is no Donald Trump.
According to an extraordinary special investigative piece in the “failing” New York Times, Fred Trump did not give Donald a one million dollar loan to start his son’s business career. Over the course of several decades he gave his son over $413 million while working tirelessly to help his son promote the false persona of a successful self-made business man. Through a series of what the Times calls “295 dubious and often illegal” money streams; the Trump family engaged in money laundering, tax fraud, bank fraud and a host of questionable business practices to avoid paying taxes to the IRS. The primary benefactor of this decades long sham; the sitting President of the United States who to this day marginalizes the key role his father played in his success.
Fred Trump began his decades long effort to shelter his vast income from the tax man by passing huge sums of money to his children. At age three Donald was earning $200,000 per year. By age eight he was a millionaire. At the age of sixteen Fred Trump handed Donald a king’s ransom in valuable New York real estate. All to decrease his personal portfolio and tax obligation to the government.
All Donald had to so was sit on the investments and he would become a New York real estate icon. But the narcissistic son always fashioned himself the great deal maker. Time and time again Donald failed only to be bailed out by his father.
One of the more egregious methods the Fred used to generate income while avoiding taxes was to set up Donald as the owner of a supply company that purchased boilers, air conditioners, supplies and the like for Fred Trump’s vast real estate empire. Donald would purchase the items requested and with his fathers’ blessing pad the invoice by 10% to sometimes 50%. Fred paid the inflated invoice thereby funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to his son while writing off the expense on his taxes. Not satisfied with this level of avarice; the Fred would use the inflated invoices/expenses to justify raising the rents in their rent controlled buildings; thereby providing the himself with both the benefit of a tax write off of the inflated expenses and the surge in profits from the resulting increase in rental income. All procured on the backs of their unsuspecting tenants. All of which would eventually work to Donald’s benefit.
In exchange for his father’s lifetime of help and benevolence; Donald tried to steal control of his then demented father’s empire right out from under his nose. Donald’s efforts failed when the father caught wind of the son’s strong armed tactics. Fearful that his entire life’s work might be lost in the morass of Donald’s failed business dealings; Fred took the necessary legal steps to protect his business interests from his son’s treachery.
In the end Donald won as he so often does. Fred Trump always wanted the business to remain in the family. But Donald’s bad business deals were always hemorrhaging cash and in desperate need of an infusion from the father’s cash cow. Shortly after Fred’s passing, Donald defied his father’s wishes and persuaded his siblings that the time was right to sell. Fred Trump’s real estate empire was valued in excess of $1 billion dollars. Fred’s self-proclaimed “great deal maker” son sold it off for $740 million.
The New York Times based its reporting on over 100,000 public and private documents including Fred Trump’s tax returns.
One can only imagine the light Donald Trump’s tax returns would shed on his decades of business dealings.
We may never get to see those records. It doesn’t matter. We now know the truth.
Donald Trump is a spectacular fraud.
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