Trump has ties to Organized Crime (May article)

[rbrnmw]

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910

In his signature book, The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump boasted that when he wanted to build a casino in Atlantic City, he persuaded the state attorney general to limit the investigation of his background to six months. Most potential owners were scrutinized for more than a year. Trump argued that he was “clean as a whistle”—young enough that he hadn’t had time to get into any sort of trouble. He got the sped-up background check, and eventually got the casino license.

But Trump was not clean as a whistle. Beginning three years earlier, he’d hired mobbed-up firms to erect Trump Tower and his Trump Plaza apartment building in Manhattan, including buying ostensibly overpriced concrete from a company controlled by mafia chieftains Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano. That story eventually came out in a federal investigation, which also concluded that in a construction industry saturated with mob influence, the Trump Plaza apartment building most likely benefited from connections to racketeering. Trump also failed to disclose that he was under investigation by a grand jury directed by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, who wanted to learn how Trump obtained an option to buy the Penn Central railroad yards on the West Side of Manhattan.

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Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910#ixzz4FKuWWzsK
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[AgadorSparticus]

1. Shocking but not really. What else with this guy? It seems to never end

[PatSeg]

9. I don't think there is a bottom

The election could go on for another year and we would still be finding crap. The one thing that Trump did not realize about running for president is there are no secrets that won't come to light.

[AgadorSparticus]

10. Sadly, I have to agree with you. All of it. I think this was just for shits and giggles

I don't think he understood or ever expected to get to where he is right now.

[PatSeg]

11. I know

I can hear him saying to himself, "Damn, I can't believe people are buying this shit." I think for him, it was a publicity stunt to invigorate his brand. There are people who have run for other offices who were surprised at the vetting process of a presidential run. Very old secrets have a habit of coming to light in this process, some things that even the candidate may have forgotten.

I wonder if Trump will survive this. Already we know far more about him than I would have imagined possible. All the lawsuits and now the financing from Russia! What next?

[AgadorSparticus]

12. I was just going to add that. That is him to a T. Did you notice how

They manage to get out that Ivanka was wearing one of her dresses from her line at the RNC convention? And I believe he even said that he wanted to push her into the spotlight as much as possible to help invigorate her brand.

[PatSeg]

14. I know

It is more like political satire than reality. Everything is transactional for the Trumps. What a lovely all American family!

If he loses (maybe should say WHEN he loses), I can picture him using the concession speech to sell something. Maybe he can have a lovely display of wine and steaks on the stage.

[AgadorSparticus]

15. " I can picture him using the concession speech to sell something."<--LMAO!!!!!!

you owe me a new keyboard! That just made my day, Pat! thank you!

[PatSeg]

16. You're welcome!

We will both remember this in November and probably won't be too surprised.

And I have a couple of spare keyboards!!!

[AgadorSparticus]

17. We'll have a drink together in November. Cheers!!

[PatSeg]

18. Its a date!!!

[Haveadream]

2. Trump has been a bottom dweller his entire career

His start as a slumlord was just the beginning. There is no part of Trump that isn't corrupt. His ties to the US and Russian mobs are part of the reason his fiscally inept business practices have not bankrupted him more often.

[rbrnmw]

4. Trump being the Republican nominee proves

that party and their voters don't know how to do serious vetting of their candidates

[Haveadream]

5. No wonder the party elders hate him

He is complete and utter trash and a total sociopath. No guilt whatsoever; he brags about doing the wrong thing. He has no ideology other than his own profiteering.

[Hortensis]

8. Even the Kochs have stayed away from him.

I sort of assumed it was both because they couldn't control him and he was virtually certain to lose. But it's likely now that they have been very aware of his various connections to Vladimir Putin and other unsavory people and organizations that couldn't fail to eventually blow up in the GOP's face.

[eastwestdem]

3. What an ass.

[yurbud]

6. I read one article on this and it said he used intermediaries, which makes him a coward rather than

a consummate negotiator.

Also, if he built it in a way that made him unusually dependent on a mafia controlled commodity, it sounds like THEY not him got the better deal.

[anotherproletariat]

7. Not making news because it is no surprise to anyone. nt

[tralala]

13. Well there is something overall very mafia-esque about his style

plus he owned (owns?) casinos. So this doesn't come as any surprise.

[FrenchieCat]

19. I'll be damned if I allow Putin to become my President.....

This ideal doesn't work for me.

[rbrnmw]

20. if Trump is working with Putin that is treason