Uncovered Tape Shows Trump Lying to Get Onto Forbes 400 List
Source: The Daily Beast
A tape recorded in 1984 appears to show Donald Trump impersonating a Trump Organization official and lying about his wealth in order to get onto the Forbes 400 ranking of Americas wealthiest people. Posing as John Barronan alter-ego name Trump frequently used with reportersthe now-president insisted he had almost complete control of his fathers real-estate empire and should be called a billionaire rather than a millionaire. In The Washington Post on Thursday, journalist Jonathan Greenberg wrote: When I recently rediscovered and listened, for first time since that year, to the tapes I made of this and other phone calls, I was amazed that I didnt see through the ruse: Although Trump altered some cadences and affected a slightly stronger New York accent, it was clearly him. Greenberg suspected a lot of the assertions from John Barron were untrue, but said Forbes estimations of Trumps wealth ($100m) proved to be well beyond what he actually had in the bank ($5m). Neither the White House or the Trump Organization responded to questions about the uncovered tape.
READ IT AT THE WASHINGTON POST
Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/uncovered-tape-shows-trump-lying-to-get-onto-forbes-400-list?ref=home
mikeysnot
(4,758 posts)people voted for this ass. I fear for my sons future.
SayItLoud
(1,702 posts)John Barron !
SWBTATTReg
(22,191 posts)C_U_L8R
(45,031 posts)dalton99a
(81,673 posts)Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400. Here are the tapes.
Posing as John Barron, he claimed he owned most of his fathers real estate empire.
By Jonathan Greenberg | April 20 at 5:30 AM
In May 1984, an official from the Trump Organization called to tell me how rich Donald J. Trump was. I was reporting for the Forbes 400, the magazines annual ranking of Americas richest people, for the third year. In the previous edition, wed valued Trumps holdings at $200 million, only one-fifth of what he claimed to own in our interviews. This time, his aide urged me on the phone, I needed to understand just how loaded Trump really was.
The official was John Barron a name we now know as an alter ego of Trump himself. When I recently rediscovered and listened, for first time since that year, to the tapes I made of this and other phone calls, I was amazed that I didnt see through the ruse: Although Trump altered some cadences and affected a slightly stronger New York accent, it was clearly him. Barron told me that Trump had taken possession of the business he ran with his father, Fred. Most of the assets have been consolidated to Mr. Trump, he said. You have down Fred Trump [as half owner] .?.?. but I think you can really use Donald Trump now. Trump, through this sockpuppet, was telling me he owned in excess of 90 percent of his familys business. With all the home runs Trump was hitting in real estate, Barron told me, he should be called a billionaire.
At the time, I suspected that some of this was untrue. I ran Trumps assertions to the ground, and for many years I was proud of the fact that Forbes had called him on his distortions and based his net worth on what I thought was solid research.
But it took decades to unwind the elaborate farce Trump had built to project an image as one of the richest people in America. Nearly every assertion supporting that claim was untrue. Trump wasnt just poorer than he said he was. Over time I have learned that he should not have been on the first three Forbes 400 lists at all. In our first-ever list, in 1982, we included him at $100 million, but Trump was actually worth roughly $5 million a paltry sum by the standards of his super-monied peers as a spate of government reports and books showed only much later.
UpInArms
(51,289 posts)and the lies continue to spew from his piehole
Corgigal
(9,291 posts)I won the pool. Will look for my ten dollars in the mail.
DemoTex
(25,407 posts)The Lie.
Bengus81
(6,936 posts)This phony POS is a SHAM billionaire. Just like this FAKE President,he's a FAKE billionaire.
NewJeffCT
(56,829 posts)on his taxes and because of that, he paid no taxes for the next 20 years... the point is that Trump could only use that billion dollar loss to offset profits in the future. So, over the next 20 years, his total earnings did not exceed $1 billion for all 20 years combined. If Trump was a master businessman and made $2 billion the next year, he would use that entire $1 billion loss to offset the $2 billion and he would have no more loss to carry forward. So, his earnings averaged out to less than $50 million/year for the last 20 or so years.
barbtries
(28,817 posts)a billionaire in debt only.
pandr32
(11,637 posts)He constantly takes on an alias to speak to reporters and to also speak directly to the public via on-air phone calls he makes as a non-existent person.
He is a complete fraud.
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)Roy Rolling
(6,943 posts)The country has practically worshipped wealth since the first episodes of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous".
It was a corrupt game, many of us didn't play, but the winner of that con game is Donald Trump, the biggest and best con man of them all.
To those who worshipped wealth, he carved himself into a golden idol and they bowed down.
Soxfan58
(3,479 posts)I can not believe it.
Gothmog
(145,794 posts)Firestorm49
(4,038 posts)Cute, but an alias is an alias. If it looks like an alias, and smells like an alias, chances are, thats all that it is.
IronLionZion
(45,615 posts)and people still fall for his blatant lies. Yeah sure he's going to bring back lots of great coal and manufacturing jobs and rebuild our infrastructure, wall first! He tells the people he's fabulously wealthy and tells the IRS he's too broke to pay taxes.
machoneman
(4,016 posts)in general didn't boycott his many projects for lack of paying up.
How stupid that they took his work knowing full well he never just pays the bill!
Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)Turbineguy
(37,392 posts)is not news.
Kurt V.
(5,624 posts)said no DU'er ever.
aggiesal
(8,943 posts)the GOP'ers
(Greedy One Percent'ers)
rickford66
(5,530 posts)gilligan
(194 posts)Who gives a FUCK. The liar in Chief is what he is. A fraud a fake a con. Always has been always will be. Unfortunately some of the America people
Fell for it. Now we all pay the price.
Grammy23
(5,815 posts)How many pieces have to be found before his whole scheme falls apart? Apparently, a LOT more for his fawning worshipers to fall out of love with him. Its a sad thing when it can be shown (with or without his tax returns) that he is a lowdown liar and he wouldnt know the truth if it bit him on the ass. It might take a bit of backward looking investigation to find the information, such as his applications for casinoes to figure out his scams, but it can be done. People like David Kay Johnson have been telling us for ages that he is not nearly as rich as he claims. But he manages to keep the outer trappings of wealth (penthouse living, golf courses, limosenes and personal jets) that the ordinary rubes believe his tall tales of fabulous wealth. The people in the know in NYC know the truth and that is why he is such an outsider there in social circles. He has to lie and scam his way there, too.
It still blows my mind that he can get away with the lies and scams he pulls on the American people day after day, even when the truth is available in not too difficult ways. I imagine after all these years of living this way, it comes second nature to him to utter lie after lie with such ease. With no conscience to guide him (as most sociopaths function), he has NO GUILT that would eat away at the rest of us. It is only as the flames of a burning truth come close to revealing the ugly story behind his claims get closer and closer to him that he shows even the slightest hint of nerves. My hope is that Muellers investigation will put to rest, once and for all, the vast over estimation of tRumps wealth and will also explain the lengths he has gone to in order to maintain the illusion of his fortune. It is complicated in many respects but basically comes down to his ability to lie and stick to that lie no matter what it takes.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Mueller is probably not enough to charge the worse of the Republican "Leadership" traitors.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)The King of Prussia
(737 posts)It's obviously David Dennison.
Oh.
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)He doesn't pay workers, he hires migrant workers so he can cheat them out of money, always getting sued.He hires lawyers and won't pay them either.
muntrv
(14,505 posts)Fritz Walter
(4,292 posts)When not if he lies in testimony to Mueller and other FBI investigators, he will commit a felony. One that cannot be ignored.
riversedge
(70,414 posts)BobTheSubgenius
(11,573 posts)Tex evasion is what brought down Al Capone. Oddly, he had a lot of support from idiots, as well.
riversedge
(70,414 posts)Simple crook--that is Trump
...The most revelatory document describing Trumps true net worth in the early 80s was a 1981 report from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission. OBrien obtained a copy for his book. Trump had applied for an Atlantic City casino license, and regulators were able to review his tax returns and personal and corporate debt, giving them the most accurate picture of his finances. They found that he had an income of about $100,000 a year, while his 1979 tax returns showed a $3.4 million taxable loss. Trumps personal assets consisted of a $1 million trust fund that Fred Trump provided to each of his children and grandchildren, a few checking accounts with about $400,000 in them and a 1977 Mercedes 450SL. Nowhere did the report list an ownership stake in the Trump Organizations residential apartments. Trump also possessed a few parcels of valuable but highly leveraged real estate, financed with $22.5 million in debt, all of it secured by his fathers assets. He did not own a safe deposit box or stocks in publicly traded companies. In sum, Trump was worth less than $5 million, not the $100 million that I reported in the first Forbes 400.