And so it begins

The truth about Trump’s fraud emerges

Having been found guilty of fraud, ex-president Donald Trump is now defending himself before a judge who will rule on the extent of his financial deceptions, the damage done to institutions and individuals, and the penalty that will be paid by his businesses, which operate as the so-called Trump Organization. The fraud spree began at least 30 years ago. If it had been stopped then, we might have been spared the threat the man poses to our democracy.

Trump began fabricating his identity as a consummately brilliant (and rich) real estate man back in the 1970s. He bought a big fancy car  (the vanity plate red “DJT”), hired a pistol-packing  off-duty cop to drive it, and made sure to be seen at the best clubs and restaurants in Manhattan.

Long before he built a single project, Trump was celebrated in the press as a rising young mogul. A local TV talk show gave him an long on-air interview.  Then a writer for The New York Times, published a profile in which she described him talking to a banker on his car phone and gushes that he resembled the dashing actor Robert Redford.  (The banker thing became a staple of Trump’s show. When I met him he appeared to fake a call with a lender and then tell me, when he hung up, that he had just been offered financing at a ridiculously low interest rate.)

Having arrived at a moment when many new celebrity-focused media outlets – People and Us magazines, the Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous TV show – were being created and pushed on the public, Trump tended more to his image than his business.  He invited cameras into his gaudy homes and then announced that he was somehow worth $1 billion.

The first Trump empire came crashing down in bankruptcy in the early 1990s. This is when the lenders made their first mistake. Instead of taking what they could and sending the deadbeat Trump packing, they bought the idea that his personality was a key asset. They kept him on as the face of the remaining operations. By the early 2000s he was back in business, selling bonds that would turn out to be worthless as his casinos in Atlantic City went bankrupt.

Time and time again the public bought into the Trump image and public officials did too. In the late 2000s the Manhattan district attorney declined to bring charges after it was found that Trump’s children had misrepresented sales in order to entice people to buy into a Trump building in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Trump, it turned out, had donated to the DA’s campaigns. Political donations of this type were a longstanding Trump activity and he would practice it for decades, making sure that people at every level of government – city, state, national – would take his calls.

Although one investigative reporter concluded that Trump’s wealth could be counted in the millions, not billions his massively popular show The Apprentice allowed him to play a multi-billionaire on TV and he was very good at it. In the show, which was a entrepreneurship competition, his catchphrase – “You’re fired” – marked the high point of every episode. Audiences across the country and around the world were captivated by “Mr. Trump” as he was called.

With the man having made himself synonymous with success, Trump’s fans ignored (or never saw) reports questioning his claim to a net worth in excess of $10 billion and few noticed that eventually only one bank, the risk-hungry Deutsche Bank, was willing to do business with him.

Imagine if the business community or prosecutors decided to investigate the claims of wealth that Trump used to show he was worthy of investment. What would our world look like? For one thing, bond buyers who backed his casinos would never have lost their money. Vendors he stiffed and those who saw their units in Trump buildings decline in value would have never experience their losses. There would have been no Apprentice shows, no campaign for president.

Instead, the gullible businesspeople and government officials looked the other way and let Trump build the personal brand that allowed him to win the Electoral College and become president despite losing the popular vote.  We got years of utter chaos and incompetence that left the country painfully divided between a Trumpist cult and the rest of us who are terrified by their blind loyalty and their aggression.  Finally came his crusade to overturn Joe Biden’s election and the Trump-inspired January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. As his followers were arrested and prosecuted for their violent capture of the building, high level officials in New York, Georgia, Washington, and Florida began piecing together evidence of the crimes and fraud committed by their leader.

The end for Trump’s image may be at hand. He could well lose control of his businesses, and, should criminal charges stick, he could lose his freedom. In other words, he could be held accountable, which is an outcome many will cheer.

 Too bad it would come decades late.