Tag: Trump tax returns

Part VII: Behind The Curtain

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Part VII: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

At the end of Part VI it was January 11th and Donald Trump was holding his first press conference since his Electoral College win. Trump stood to one side of the stage, flanked by Donald Jr 39, Ivanka 35, and Eric 33, listening to his tax attorney, Sheri Dillon explain to the audience of reporters and staff, the changes that were being made to the Trump Organization.

The stage with a center podium was decorated with solemn dark blue drapes and a row of American flags with long gold tassels giving the event a sober tone. On a black shrouded table, to the left of where Dillon stood at the podium, were stacks of manila folders. The stacks were impressively high. Pointing to the stacks of folders, Dillon claimed they were filled with 1000’s of documents proving that Trump was re-arranging his empire to satisfy the growing chorus of critics.

Dillon claimed the Trump “business empire” was “massive”. She emphasized massive several times. A couple of times Dillon tried to draw a correlation between Trump and former Vice President, Nelson Rockefeller as she talked about the changes being made at the Trump Organization. Evidently, she did not know that Rockefeller had released his tax returns and later offered to place his sizeable assets in a blind trust. Neither of which Trump has offered to do.

“The plan” was, according to Dillon, to put the Trump Organization into a trust to be managed by his sons and a long time executive. She emphasized that there would be no more foreign deals, an ethics advisor would be chosen and lastly, Donald Trump would have no involvement in the business. It quickly became clear that Trump was not going to sell his business or put those assets in a blind trust, or release his tax returns.

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Part IV: Behind The Curtain

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Part IV: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

As we have already seen, Russians have floated in the Trump swamp for decades. The President’s first contacts with Russians came in the late 1980’s when Trump was wooed by the Russian government to look at the prospect of building hotels in Moscow and Kiev.

Trump has had many Russian tenants in the Trump Tower.  One very memorable Russian tenant was alleged Russian mob boss Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.  An apartment at Trump Tower rented to Tokhtakhounov was the subject of a raid in April 2013 by federal agents as part of an investigation in to two separate gambling rings. Interestingly, Ali Tokhakhounov was, despite being under indictment in the United States for various gambling and corruption charges, made an appearance at Trump’s Miss Universe Pageant held in Moscow that same year.

In addition to Russian tenants, Trump has had several Russian partners, most notably the boys from Bayrock. The Trump Organization has sold an endless stream of condo’s and private residences to Russians. His children have traveled extensively throughout Russia.  In fact, according to recent news stories the Trump Organization was actively negotiating with Russian officials to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 Presidential election.

In January of 2017 Trump tweeted, “I have nothing to do with Russia–NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING.” We now know that was a blatant lie. In separate interviews about that same time Trump said in weird rambling denials that neither he or his campaign had any connection to Russians.  Trump’s praise of Putin, and his refusal to ever criticize the Russian strong man has brought those assertions into serious question, causing many to speculate that Trump has been compromised.

Going back to that 2013 Miss Universe Pageant, prior to the event Trump issued a very strange tweet, “Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow–if so, will he be become my new best friend?”

The answer to that very strange Twitter inquiry is unknown. Putin did not go to the event, but he did send an expensive lacquered Russian box to Trump. The event venue was the Crocus City Mall.  The Crocus City Mall is owned by Aras Agalarov a Russian oligarch with known ties to Vladimir Putin.  It is common knowledge that Agalarov and Trump discussed the construction of twin adjacent Trump towers in downtown Moscow during that 2013 visit.

Trump bizarrely equating business deals with diplomacy; answered as follows when a FoxNews commentator confronted him on his lack of foreign policy experience. “I know Russia well.  I had a major event in Russia two or three years ago, which was a big, big incredible event,” referring to the Miss Universe Pageant.

Really? Please explain to me, and the 70% of Americans who do not equate running a beauty pageant with running a country, how that answer and that experience would in any way qualify him as knowledgeable of foreign policy. Trump, I believe, is slowly beginning to realize what many of us already knew, that the two are in no way similar, or interchangeable.  In fact, many of the tactics used in business are inappropriate as national political strategy or policy.

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Part III: Behind The Curtain

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Part III: Behind The Curtain

D. S. Mitchell

One thing we have learned over the years is that Donald Trump is very aware of perception, most notably, the size of his fortune. In a 2006 lawsuit Trump sued Timothy L. O’Brien, author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, for $5 million in damages because O’Brien asserted that Trump was actually “worth somewhere between $150 million and $250 million.” This was after Trump had stated in the book that he was worth $6 billion.

Trump claimed that “low ball estimates of his wealth came from guys who have four hundred pound wives and were jealous of his success.” ***(“four hundred pound wives’ sounds eerily familiar. Remember that imaginary “four hundred pound hacker siting on his bed” Trump described during the debates? So, my first twisted thought is that if I hear the “400 pound” line come out of his mouth I will assume it is an outright lie.)

So, what is Trump really worth? We are now entering murky waters. In the O’Brien lawsuit Trump claimed that an unfavorable news story, article, comment, or book in this case, could “psychologically hurt me. I am a billionaire, not a perceived billionaire.”

Court records from that case, based on a Trump Organization financial statement placed his net worth at $3.5 billion, far less than the $6 billion Trump claimed to O’Brien during interviews for TrumpNation. That same year there were many other efforts to assess the size of Trump’s fortune.  North Fork Bank, now Capital One Bank, estimated his total worth to be $1.2 billion, while Deutsche Bank put the estimate at closer to $788 million in 2005.

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