Trump's Ties to Organized Crime

I've had my quibbles with Politico but a recent report by Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist David Cay Johnston should be required reading for every voter. Johnston quotes presidential historian Douglas Brinkley comparing Trump's candidacy to Warren G. Harding. The Teapot Dome scandal in the 1920s during the Harding administration resulted in a cabinet official going to prison, and is regarded as a paradigm of government corruption.

Trump's mob associations began shortly after he graduated from Wharton in 1968, when he approached Roy Cohn (of McCarthy Hearing infamy) to be his lawyer. At the time Cohn's clients included noted mob figures "Fat Tony" Salerno, boss of the Genovese crime family, and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family. According to investigative journalist Wayne Barrett, Trump reportedly met Salerno at Cohn's townhouse. A federal indictment of Salerno later concluded that Trump paid inflated prices to a firm Salerno and Castellano owned through front corporations, for ready-mix concrete used in building Trump Tower.

In 1980 the FBI questioned Trump about Teamsters official John Cody, who they suspected might have been the beneficiary of a free Trump Tower apartment. A woman friend of Cody with no discernible source of income "bought" three apartments just below where Trump himself lived. According to Wayne Barrett, Trump helped the woman obtain a $3 million loan without submitting financial information or an application. In 1982 a city-wide Teamsters strike halted work at most New York City construction projects, but work continued at Trump Tower.

And so on....

Read the full story at Politico.

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