Part I: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

We are now in the midst of the most controversial presidency in our in our country’s history. Trump’s erratic and often bizarre behavior, his Twitter storms, his failing public agenda, his plummeting poll ratings, the mounting pressure of multiple ethics and campaign investigations, his attacks against members of his own party, keep the world riveted to our various media devices.  Sadly, for the country his first 7 months in the Oval Office have been nearly toxic, starting with his dark and angry Inaugural Address has led to anger and violence on “both sides.” There is an uptick of violence by whites against blacks and other people of color.

How did we go from a Republican House, a Republican Senate and a Republican President that had the potential to ramrod through any legislation they proposed has dissolved into the current chaos. What started as whispers over drinks at dinner between Republican party operatives and legislators, moved to the first timid voices, and what now can best be described as a near free-for-all between the varying Republican factions. Louder voices are demanding either changes in his behavior,  or they will use the power of the Congress and remove his spoiled, delinquent ass, from office.

You can almost see the salivating lawmakers as they look to their quiet former colleague, the up-tight Vice President Mike Pence. The visual is all photo perfect, with Pence looking like a TV game host and sounding like a Baptist preacher. That budding love affair between Pence and the Legislative Branch, is at the moment, only wishful thinking, but as Trump becomes more toxic I can see increased support for the presumptive “new” president.  I can see Trump when forces begin to close in on him; Trump will pardon everyone in sight, including himself and resign, leaving us with that devoted conservative Mike Pence.

I promise you, if Trump resigns, or is removed from office and they try to leave us with Mike Pence I will lose it–seriously lose it.  If Russia colluded with the Trump campaign, then Pence was at the very center of the scandal and should never under any circumstances be sworn into the office of the President of the United States.

So, how did it come to pass that a probable losing candidate for a second term as Indiana governor, could now  be standing this close to being sworn in as the 46th President of the United States.  Paul Manafort is the man behind Trump picking Mike Pence for this now pivotal role. Paul Manafort and Mike Pence. What ties did those two have between them, that made Manafort confident enough in Pence that Manafort would push Pence for the Vice President role, working apparently overtime to convince Trump that Pence was the perfect balance to the ticket.

So, back to how all this happened.  Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946. Oddly, he has the same birthday as my son, the day and month, not the year! His father, Fred Trump had already made a great fortune, and was a multi-millionaire when Donald was born.  The elder Trump had made his fortune building middle class housing units in Brooklyn and Queens.

Donald spent two years at Fordham University and then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated with a BA in Economics.  He did take some classes through the Wharton School of Business but he did not graduate with the famed Wharton MBA.  Trump did NOT graduate first in his class at Wharton.  In fact he was never officially in anything but the University’s undergraduate program.

After graduating University of Pennsylvania, Donald went to work for his Dad in 1968.  Donald did not like being identified as a ‘Queen’s guy’.  Donald dreamed of moving to the big stage of Manhattan real estate. Although his father did not share his son’s fascination with Manhattan real estate, his father helped further Donald’s ambitions with millions of dollars in loans, and political support from Fred’s political allies enabling, which allowed Donald to build the 42nd Avenue Grand Hyatt and the Trump Tower.

Donald Trump was never accepted into the close-knit world of New York real estate aristocracy. Trump was generally despised by New York society, city officials, and the art preservationists. He was a loud, brash, self-promoter whose name and face were fixtures on the cover of The Enquirer and other Tattler type outlets. He was well-known for planting stories in the tabloids and he has spent the last 50 years banging his own drum and surrounding himself with a circus like atmosphere.

Trump was known for his frequent litigation: either being sued or suing someone. When Donald sued his partner on the Hyatt project, highly respected real estate investor, Jay Pritzker he angered a large section of the New York real estate community who knew the two men.

The art preservationists hate Trump because he had promised to “preserve and donate” two 15 foot tall limestone Art Deco panels that decorated the entry of the old Bonwit Taylor building, which was being demolished for the construction of Trump Tower.  Despite his promise to give the Art Deco panels to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, he ordered their destruction so he could apparently keep his project on schedule.  After their destruction, Trump added that the panels were “without artistic merit.” The intentional destruction of the panels angered many New Yorker’s and it solidified Trump’s place as ‘chief jerk’.  Constant episodes of such unpopular behavior are the primary reasons why Trump was marginalized to the fringes of New York ‘society’.

The fact that Trump was not a philanthropist sealed his fate to forever remain mainstay “an outsider.”  An acquaintance who has known Trump for thirty years said, “Philanthropy is giving and he’s all about taking.”

By 1990 Trump was running what appeared to be a small empire.  He owned the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, a small airline, the ‘Trump Shuttle’, three casinos in Atlantic City, Mar-a-Lago, a yacht, a helicopter, a private jet and a penthouse at the Trump Tower.  He was however, living on borrowed money.

He had “bought it all with junk bonds (which had been created to finance his casinos thru public investment) and bank loans. Suzanna Andrews for Vanity Fair declared, “He was like an addict, undisciplined, unable to stop when the banks kept peddling their money. By 1990, Trump was $3 billion in debt, at a time when the real estate and casino markets were slumping. Even worse, Trump had put his personal guarantee on $900 million of that debt.”

Trump was facing personal bankruptcy.  He was able to sell The Plaza, his yacht was repossessed, and his airline shuttle service was sold by the bankruptcy trustee.  Trump’s principle lender at this time was Citicorp.  Citicorp forced Trump on to a budget, cutting his monthly spending from $800,000 a month to $300,000 a month. At the same time Trump’s casino bondholders were outraged. They were pushing for his personal bankruptcy.  Two defenders came to his aid and averted that possibility. Those two men joined Trump’s inner circle, Wilbur Ross and Carl Icahn.

Icahn, the infamous corporate raider has just resigned from his unofficial, unpaid position as “special advisor to the president on regulatory reform.” The resignation came just days before the New Yorker magazine published an investigative piece that linked Icahn in a scheme to change an EPA rule in such a way that those changes would have benefited a refinery Icahn owns. The second man,Wilbur Ross, now the Secretary of Commerce, was then a re-structuring expert representing the casino bondholders.  Ross after observing Trump, became convinced, like Icahn, that without Trump the bonds held by investors would be worthless.

Over the next two decades, Trump casinos would go through four bankruptcies.  It is known that during that period Trump personally made over $82 million dollars. The stock and the bondholders lost 1.5 billion. Furthermore, many of the electricians, painters, plumbers who worked on the properties would never be paid, forcing many of these contractors out of business.

A recent USA Today investigative article stated that “Trump has been involved in a “large number” of legal actions–including “hundreds” of liens, judgments and government filings, involving workers who alleged Trump had refused to pay them for their work, usually because he claimed the work to be “inferior.”

In December of 2016 a group of three contractors, AES Electric, a small 45 person company, Joseph Magnolia Plumbing and A & D Construction, a Hispanic owned company claimed that Trump owed them a joint total in excess of $5 million dollars for their work on Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel.

A & D in their $2 million January 2017 lawsuit against Trump for withholding payment on completed work.  A & D said Trump did this to “force small businesses to accept less for their work than had been contracted for.”  The suit continued, “it is a repeated practice of the Trump organization.”

Trump attorney, Alan Garten, claimed the allegations were “totally baseless” and that a “few miscellaneous liens are not uncommon in a project of this scale and complexity.”

Small companies have trouble fighting back against Trump, where his antagonists have no such prohibitions.  After his 1990’s very public crash and burn, he was known around New York banking circles as “Donald Risk.” One prominent banker put it this way, “There’s been a general view that, on  many occasions, entering into a relationship with Donald has resulted in a bad outcome. I think the view about Donald is that he prioritizes only himself.”

Today Trump apparently has only two major institutions that will lend to him.  He owes Ladder Capital an estimated $290,000,000.  Ladder is an investment trust that creates loans and then sells off most of its loans for a profit. his other lender is Deutsche Bank.  Deutsche Bank now holds about $360,000,000 in Trump debt. Recently Deutsche Bank settled with the U.S. D.O.J. for  7.2 billion dollars for its role in the 2008 economic collapse and illegal stock trades with wealthy Russians.

As an aside, many experts are concerned that because Deutsche Bank holds the federal-government lease on the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C. as the collateral on a nearly $175,000,000 loan  there is a risk that Trump would attempt to  influence or squash any investigation into the banks dealings.

That Deutsche Bank loan has ethics watch dogs pulling viciously at their chains.  The concern of course is that Deutsche Bank could attempt to exert undue influence on the president. Trump’s Washington hotel is just one of Trump’s more controversial properties and business deals, but there are many more, which I will discuss further in Part II of this story.

Join the Resistance

Dar

*Special thanks to US Today, Vanity Fair, MSNBC, and the New York Times for the facts and figures used in this post.*