Due To His Indebtedness His Reliance On Income From Overseas And His Refusal To Authentically Distance Himself From His Hodgepodge Of Business Trump Represents A Profound National Security Threat
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In a tour de force of hard won reporting, the New York Times has put numerical clothing on what weve known about President Donald Trump for decades that, at best, hes a haphazard businessman, human billboard and serial bankruptcy artist who gorges on debt he may have a hard time repaying.
The Times, in a news story published Sunday evening that disclosed years of the presidents tax returns, also put a lot of clothing on things we didnt know. Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he was elected president, and the same amount …
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Present: Donald J Trump & The Trump Organization V Elijah E Cummings Peter Kenny Deutsche Bank Ag Capital One & Mazars Usa
Although Donald Trump has spent nearly his entire life in the public eye, the amount of scrutiny placed on him and his business dealings has exponentially grown since he became President. Due to partisan political warfare, feverish news hounds, and federal investigations, a whole lot of people want to know about Trumps finances. And while Trump had successfully been able to fight off many of these inquiries, the fallout of his Stormy Daniels lawsuits led to the New York attorney general demanding that his banks reveal the records of their dealings with the Commander in Chief.
In response to this latest federal financial inquiry, Trump and his team went on the legal defensive. This started with a federal suit that attempted to block his accounting firm, Mazars USA,from sharing their records with House of Representatives members Elijah E. Cummingsand Peter Kenny.According to the complaintattached to the suit, Trumps team claimed that the investigation lacks a legitimate legislative purpose and was intended as a political tool against the President now and in the 2022election.
Winner: Ongoing
Based on these statements and the substantial amount of examples given to back them up including one from George Washingtons presidency , it appears that this might be a case that Trump cant win. However, Trump has a long history of defying expectations and avoiding negative consequences for his actions, so who knows?
Marvin B Roffman V Donald J Trump & Trump Organization Inc
In addition to his numerous real estate projects in New York and Florida, Trump dabbled in several gaming-related projects in New Jersey by purchasing and renovating several casinos located on the Atlantic City boardwalk. First it was the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in 1986, followed by the Trump Marina, Trump Taj Mahal, and Trump Worlds Fair in the late 80s and early 90s.
Although all of Trumps forays into casino ownership were disastrous and led to bankruptcy, the Trump Taj Mahal was notorious for the numerous legal battles centered around it. Even before purchasing the property, Trump had to fight talk show host Merv Griffin with multiple lawsuits just to obtain ownership, as described in a Los Angeles Times article from 1988.
However, the most notorious lawsuit relating to this doomed property involved financial analyst . According to a New York Times article from that time, he was fired from his position due to harsh criticism and multiple lawsuit threats from Trump. The reason for the real estate moguls ire was that Roffman had gone on record saying that the Trump Taj Mahal was bound to fail due to high operating costs and an imminent downturn in the market. After being constantly bad-mouthed by Trump in the press, Marvin Roffman decided to file a $2 million suit against Trump and his company for defamation in order to defend his professional reputation.
Winner: Draw
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Lawsuits Over The January 6 Riot
Two U.S. Capitol police officers sued Trump, for allegedly inciting the riots that took over the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Eric Swalwell filed a lawsuit against Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr., and two others of violating federal civil rights laws and local incitement laws after they spoke at a rally near the White House on January 6 before members of the crowd moved on to the Capitol.
Stocks Bonds Funds And Similar Holdings
Trump’s personal financial market investment portfolio is concentrated in the financial and commodities markets. The investment portfolio generates income and cash flow from a variety of mechanisms as dividends, capital gains, and compounded carried interest. He invested a minimum of $70 million in stocks.Though real estate is still his most preferred asset class, Trump became an active financial market investor in 2011 following disappointment from the depressed American real estate market and various investments in the Federal Reserve’s interest yields on CDs were next to nothing. Trump stated that he was not enthusiastic to be a stock market investor, but that prime real estate at good prices was hard to find at that time and that stocks and equity securities were cheap and generating good cash flow from dividends. He profited from 40 of the 45 stocks he purchased which he sold in 2014, making it almost a 90% success rate in capital appreciation in addition to millions in earned dividends. The biggest gainers in his stock portfolio were Bank of America Corporation, The Boeing Company and Facebook, Inc earning a windfall profit of $6.7 million, $3.96 million and $3.85 million, respectively.
On a government form submitted in 2015, Trump reported holding an amount of physical gold, valued at between $100,001 to $250,000.
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Trump Never Loses Another Chance
Despite his many missteps, Trump has always rebounded and found new ways to pursue his interests. Trump shifted his business from developing projects to licensing and management deals after he had failed in the 1990s.
Trumps star rose to new heights when he was made a reality TV star as The Apprentice even though his casino business went bankrupt twice more. He capitalized on his fame to run for President in 2016, defeating two political dynasties, the Clinton and Bush families, on his way to becoming the White House.
Even if he loses in democrats2020 and experiences the same embarrassing setback as his hotel or casino failures, Trump will still be there. Trump has an extraordinary gift for selling that leads to more deals, sometimes with ex-partners who have reacted negatively to him but then warmed to him again.
Trump sued Deutsche Bank in 2008 to get some of his loan payments back. He was trying to sell condos in his Chicago tower. After two years of legal battles, the two sides settled, and Deutsche Bank began lending Trump money again in 2011. Trump likely hopes that 2020 voters will be equally forgiving.
Donald J Trump V Timothy Obrien & Warner Books
Out of all his businesses, properties, and accomplishments, Trumps most lucrative asset is his brand. The way that he handles new business deals and finds leverage when negotiating is through his image as a self-made billionaire. After all, his perceived success and skill in business was the primary appeal for contestants and viewers of his reality show The Apprentice. Consequently, Trump is highly motivated to react aggressively when this brand is under attack, as it was in 2006 when a book was released titled TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald.
Image Source:Goodreads
TrumpNation was written by Timothy OBrien, a New York Times journalist. Released in 2005, the book is described as a real-life study of colorful and contradictory world based on time spent with him, his colleagues, and some of his rivals. After conducting a substantial amount of research into Trumps history including receiving permission from the man himself to look into his financial records OBrien concluded in his book that Trumps net worth was somewhere in the hundreds of millions.
Winner: Timothy OBrien
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Trump Contractors: ‘it Was The Beginning Of The End For Us’
Trump takes umbrage at the idea that he went bankrupt, always pointing out that he never filed personally and that he used the bankruptcy laws to get richer.
Connolly said taking his casinos into Chapter 11 was “reasonable and responsible” and the right decision for Trump and his bondholders.
“It looked like a fair deal and actually kept them going,” Connolly said.
But Mike D’Antonio, author of the book “Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success,” said the bankruptcies shouldn’t come with bragging rights.
“Donald likes to say his bankruptcy filings were just a tool he’s been using for his businesses,” D’Antonio said. “He’s had a string of failures. And you’re not just talking about big investors. You’re also taking about bond holders, not big banks…people who invested their retirements.
“So, you can call it a legal tool that he’s using, but lots of people have been hurt along the way. Its been a badge of shame for him.”
Tom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
Were Watching Trumps 7th Bankruptcy Unfold
As a businessman, Donald Trump ran 6 businesses that declared bankruptcy because they couldnt pay their bills. As the president running for a second term, Trump is repeating some of the mistakes he made as a businessman and risking the downfall of yet another venture: his own political operation.
In the 1980s, Trump was a swashbuckling real-estate investor who bet big on the rise of Atlantic City after New Jersey legalized gambling there. He acquired three casinos that by 1991 couldnt pay their debts. The Taj Mahal declared bankruptcy in 1991, the Trump Plaza and the Trump Castle in 1992. Lenders restructured the debt rather than liquidate and Trump put his casino holdings into a new company that went bankrupt in 2004. The company that emerged from that restructuring declared bankruptcy in 2009. Trumps 6th bankruptcy was the Plaza Hotel, which he bought in 1988. It went bankrupt by 1992.
Trumps surprise victory in 2016 paralleled the arrival of the brash upstart in Atlantic City more than 30 years earlier. But in the fourth year of his presidency, the Trump operation is once again reeling. Voters give him poor marks for handling the coronavirus crisis, underscored by an outbreak at the White House that infected Trump himself. Democrat Joe Biden is beating Trump is most swing states and an Election Day blowout is possible. Trump has suggested he wont leave office if he loses, threatening a constitutional crisis and his own political legacy.
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The 2nd Windfall: ‘the Apprentice’
After the turn of the 21st century, Trump’s starring role in “The Apprentice” was his next big windfall, providing him with $197.3 million from 2000 to 2018, per The Times. This figure expands even further when factoring in endorsements and licensing deals that traded off his “You’re fired!” image.
Trump still filed two corporate bankruptcies during this era in 2004 and 2009 but his assets’ struggles were largely hidden behind the opaque wall of the Trump Organization as Deutsche Bank grew to become his main lender, loaning him $2 billion over the next two decades, per The Times.
Instances of deceptive accounting have arisen in lawsuit claims or in reporting similar to The Times’, such as the Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold’s Pulitzer-winning work on the Trump Foundation. Fahrenthold reported that the foundation, ostensibly a charity, ran on few of Trump’s own dollars and that Trump had used funds from it to settle legal disputes.
The Times concluded in its recent analysis that Trump had largely spent on golf courses in recent years that these assets lose millions, or tens of millions, a year and that his revenue from “The Apprentice” and licensing deals had been withering away.
Since 2000, The Times found, Trump has lost $315.6 million from his 15 golf courses in the US, Scotland, and Ireland, including $162.3 million in losses on his National Doral golf resort in Miami from 2012 to 2018 and $63.6 million on his three European golf courses.
Personal Vs Corporate Bankruptcy
One point of clarification: Trump has never filed personal bankruptcy, only corporate bankruptcy related to some of his business interests. I have never gone bankrupt, Trump has said.
Here is a look at the six Trump corporate bankruptcies. The details are a matter of public record and have been widely published by the news media and even discussed by Trump himself.
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Nevada Early Voting Latino Turnout Controversy
On November 8, 2016, Trump filed a lawsuit claiming early voting polling places in Clark County, Nevada, were kept open too late. These precincts had high turnout of Latino voters. Nevada state law explicitly states that polls are to stay open to accommodate eligible voters in line at closing time. Hillary Clinton campaign advisor Neera Tanden says the Trump campaign is trying to suppress Latino voter turnout. A political analyst from Nevada, Jon Ralston tweeted that the Trump lawsuit is “insane” in a state that clearly allows the polls to remains open until everyone in line has voted. Former Nevada Secretary of StateRoss Miller, posted the statute that states “voting must continue until those voters have voted”. Miller said: “If there are people in line waiting to vote at 7 pm, voting must continue until everyone votes…. We still live in America, right?”
It Will Be The Best 1996
Donald Trump has said that his brushes with financial disaster in the early 1990s reminded him of a lesson his father had taught him: Do not leave yourself on the hook for loans.
My father knew, like I knew, you dont personally guarantee, Mr. Trump is quoted saying in TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, by Timothy L. OBrien, a former reporter for The Times. Ive told people I didnt follow my own advice.
His agreements with lenders and the two casino bankruptcies in those years still left Mr. Trump personally responsible for more than $100 million in debt, and his agreements had only delayed the day of reckoning to June 30, 1995.
He dealt with that danger by first shifting much of his personal debt onto his casinos, then onto a new group: .
Step 1 came in 1993, when his company sold more junk bonds, adding another $100 million in debt to the Trump Plaza casino. More than half of the new money went to pay off Mr. Trumps unrelated personal loans.
Then, in June 1995, with the risk of being forced into bankruptcy just weeks away, Mr. Trump shifted ownership of the Plaza casino to a new, publicly traded company: Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts. In the initial public offering, 10 million shares were sold at $14. At the same time, the company also sold another $155 million in junk bonds, at a 15.5 percent interest rate.
Indeed, the company posted losses of $66 million in 1996, $42 million in 1997 and $40 million in 1998. Those losses would continue.
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