Today the good people at DemocracyNow! interviewed David Cay Johnston about his new book “The Making of Donald Trump.” I haven’t had a chance to read it yet because it has just been published, but Amy Goodman’s and Juan Gonzales’ interview of the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter was very enlightening. Johnston revealed much about Trumps strikingly and ongoing depraved and criminal behavior. The podcast is well worth a look www.democracynow.org/… If you want to jump to Johnston’s interview it’s about 20 minutes into the podcast. The following bit of transcript should infuriate you and whet your appetite to learn more.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: David, I wanted to ask you about this issue which we discussed previously with Wayne Barrett, as well, on the issue of Donald Trump’s relationship to the mob and his connections over the years to mobsters. And you’ve also looked into that, as well.
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Yes, and it’s not just the traditional Mafia families in New York. First of all, Donald Trump’s father had a business partner who was a mob guy. I’m sure Wayne talked about that. But Donald has done business with people with the Russian mob. He’s done business with con artists. The guy who supplied his helicopters and managed his personal helicopter, called the Ivana, from his first wife back then, was a major cocaine trafficker, who actually handled the drugs. And after he went to prison, Donald wrote a letter pleading for mercy for him, so he got 18 months as the head of the ring. The little fish who delivered the drugs, they got 20 years. Donald continued to do business with him after he was indicted. Donald has done business all his life with mobsters and criminals, because it’s a way to make money.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about Joseph Weichselbaum?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Yes, that’s the guy. Joseph Weichselbaum is this mob associate. He once—he used to do Cigarette boat racing in Miami, and he once was—came in third, right behind Charles Keating, the infamous financier who ripped off people for a billion dollars. And Weichselbaum provided helicopters to the Trump Organization, even though there were better-capitalized, better-run companies. Donald rented an apartment to Weichselbaum and his brother under very unusual circumstances.
When Weichselbaum was indicted, it was for a drug operation that went from Miami to Ohio. When he agreed to plead guilty, the case was mysteriously moved to New Jersey. And who did it come before? Federal Judge Maryanne Trump Barry [emphasis added], Donald’s older sister. No one knows how this happened. Now, she removed herself from the case, but imagine, Amy, that you, or one of the listeners, you’re the chief judge, and the judge comes to you and says, "Oh, I can’t handle this case, because I fly in this drug trafficker’s helicopters. My husband flies in them every week. My children have flown in this drug trafficker’s helicopters." You know, it helps explain how this guy got a light sentence.
And the question we have to ask is: Why did Donald Trump need to write that letter, which could have cost him his casino license? Because he needed this guy to be his friend and not his enemy. What was going on that Donald Trump needed a drug trafficker to be his friend and not his enemy? And that’s a question no one in the news media has been asking.
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Johnston’s book lays waste to the notion that Trump has any redeeming qualities. Of the many dastardly actions taken by Trump, according to Johnston, is that Trump acted against the best interests of his nephew, a sickly young child, by cutting off the boy’s health insurance. In effect he was holding his nephew’s health ransom in order to convince his relatives to drop their claims to Trump’s father’s estate.
Just when you think what you know about Trump can’t get any worse, it does.
(Disclaimer: This is only my second Daily Kos effort, but I felt I needed to get this published asap. As you can see I could use some tips on formatting, or anything else that could improve my efforts :)