NY Times Reports Donald Trump Is No "Self-Made" Man

Donald Trump

The New York Times has done a deep dive into Donald Trump's financial worth based on interviews with his father's former employees and advisers, as well as more than 100,000 pages of documents describing the inner workings and immense profitability of his empire.

The results of The Times research suggests the Donald is no 'self-made' man.

Mr. Trump won the presidency proclaiming himself a self-made billionaire, and he has long insisted that his father, the legendary New York City builder Fred C. Trump, provided almost no financial help.

But The Times’s investigation, based on a vast trove of confidential tax returns and financial records, reveals that Mr. Trump received the equivalent today of at least $413 million from his father’s real estate empire, starting when he was a toddler and continuing to this day.

[snip]

In Mr. Trump’s version of how he got rich, he was the master dealmaker who broke free of his father’s “tiny” outer-borough operation and parlayed a single $1 million loan from his father (“I had to pay him back with interest!”) into a $10 billion empire that would slap the Trump name on hotels, high-rises, casinos, airlines and golf courses the world over. In Mr. Trump’s version, it was always his guts and gumption that overcame setbacks. Fred Trump was simply a cheerleader.

“I built what I built myself,” Mr. Trump has said, a narrative that was long amplified by often-credulous coverage from news organizations, including The Times.

[snip]

By age 3, Mr. Trump was earning $200,000 a year in today’s dollars from his father’s empire. He was a millionaire by age 8. By the time he was 17, his father had given him part ownership of a 52-unit apartment building. Soon after Mr. Trump graduated from college, he was receiving the equivalent of $1 million a year from his father. The money increased with the years, to more than $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s.

A lawyer for Trump. Charles J. Harder, issued a statement to the Times saying, “The New York Times’s allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100 percent false, and highly defamatory.”

“There was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. The facts upon which The Times bases its false allegations are extremely inaccurate,” Harder added.

Can you imagine the discovery process if Trump sued for defamation? Would be all kinds of fun...

If this article on Fred Trump and @realDonaldTrump is accurate, their actions would appear to constitute tax evasion and tax fraud. https://t.co/tvydLiJ0o1

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) October 2, 2018

The 94% UNDER-valuing of Fred Trump's real estate, per @nytimes is egregious, likely criminal. Trumps escaped $300+ million of gift tax. 2 decades ago I reported such cheating was rampant, but IRS lacked resources to pursue. Congress has since made cheating easier.

— David Cay Johnston (@DavidCayJ) October 2, 2018

“I have never even heard of Fred Trump.” pic.twitter.com/XiDVLVLYnh

— Diane N. Sevenay (@Diane_7A) October 2, 2018