I purchased Mary Trump's psychological diagnostic manual, Too Much and Never Enough written about the entire Trump clan and read the entire book. I suspect my take as a reader will be nearly identical to anyone else that reads the book. No one who NEEDS to read this book is going to do so. Everyone that DOES read this book will only learn about particulars but learn nothing in the abstract that hasn't been public knowledge for decades -- the fact that Donald Trump is a liar, a cheater on taxes / laws / relationships, a racist, a misogynist and a narcissistic sociopath.
One key insight or particular IS addressed in the book across different chapters that has a bearing on Donald Trump's future and his fixation on meddling with what might be going on with prosecutors at the Federal or New York State levels.
In the 1989 to 1992 time frame, Donald Trump was struggling to regain financial security after his trio of Atlantic City casino investments all tanked simultaneously. Banks involved with the casino bankruptcies were so deeply exposed that their re-investment plan to stabilize the casinos essentially guaranteed Donald Trump a mere $450,000 per month "allowance" aimed at ensuring he could maintain the Trump mystique and public persona that would continue attracting the rubes into the casinos and avoid spooking second tier creditors, triggering an irrecoverable collapse ("in for a penny, in for a pound…"). During that same time frame, his father Fred Trump was already beginning to suffer cognitive declines from still-undiagnosed Alzheimers.
By 1990, Donald Trump saw a problem (cash flow for Donald), saw a weakness to exploit (an increasingly senile father), saw a benefit to accrue to himself(control of his father's firm Trump Management that was still producing tens of millions in free cash from operating hundreds of seedy real estate complexes) and devised a solution. From the book,
He secretly approached two of my grandfather's longest-serving employees Irwin Durben, his lawyer, and Jack Mitnick, his accountant, and enlisted them to draft a codicil to my grandfather's will that would put Donald in complete control of Fred's estate, including the empire and all of its holdings, after he died. Maryanne, Elizabeth, and Robert would effectively be at Donald's financial mercy, dependent on his approval for the smallest transaction.
As Gam later told Maryanne, when Irwin and Jack went to the House to have Fred sign the codicil, they presented the document as if it had been Fred's idea all along. My grandfather, who was having one of his more lucid days, sensed that something was not right, although he couldn't say exactly what. He angrily refused to sign. After Irwin and Jack left, Fred conveyed his concerns to his wife. My grandmother immediately called her oldest child to explain what had happened as best she could. In short, she said, "it simply didn't pass the smell test."
That oldest child Maryanne enlisted others with more expertise in estate planning and the rest of Donald's siblings uncovered the entire plan and triggered a complete rewrite of Fred Trump's will that named them all as co-executors and guaranteed all four children -- Maryanne, Donald, Elizabeth and Robert -- received equal amounts.
That's an interesting peek into petty family politics and another confirmation of Donald Trump's predisposition to cheat anyone (including family) out of anything for his own behalf. But, as they say, that's not why I'm writing...
The key insight stems from the terms of that updated will for Fred Trump and the enormous tax fraud that was perpetrated by all of the Trump siblings -- Maryanne, Donald, Elizabeth and Robert -- from that point forward. Niece Mary was exposed to some of the details because of the terms in the Fred Trump will affecting her and her brother. Fred Sr. had completely removed Freddy Trump (their father) years prior but separate language still allocated cash from one affiliate of Trump Management called Midland Associates to the two children of Freddy. Niece Mary and Nephew Fritz were simply trying to ensure the executors were not going to cut off that stream of income -- especially since Fritz and his wife had a newborn child in a hospital racking up huge bills.
Mary Trump and Fritz Trump haggled with the four siblings for nearly two years and finally decided to settle out of court. The stakes were the deceased Freddy Jr's twenty percent share of the Midland Associates assets. The four siblings demanded that Mary and Fritz sell that share back to the four siblings as a means of cashing them out. The book doesn't provide an exact figure for the settlement (maybe due to a non-disclosure agreement?). It does mention that, at the time in 1999, the four siblings were claiming the entire Fred Trump estate was only worth $30 million dollars. However, immediately after Fred Trump's death, youngest son Robert Trump had claimed to the New York Times that Fred Trump's empire was worth $350 million. In reality, it was worth roughly four times THAT amount.The documents amassed for the legal haggling in 1999 over terms of Fred Trump's will affecting Mary Trump and Fritz Trump were provided by Mary Trump to The New York Times in 2018 as they researched the larger financial history of the Trump empire. Those documents and other information found independently show that back in 1992 after Donald Trump's abortive 1990 attempt to steal his father's estate from under the noses of his siblings, all four of the siblings faced a new problem that encouraged them to partner up with Donald for their collective good. Fred Trump had refused to slowly cede control of his assets to the children during his lifetime as a tax avoidance strategy. Since Trump Management actually generated a lot of free cash (unlike Donald's Trump Organization fiascos...), the firm (and thus Fred's estate) also had enormous sums of cash on hand that would also trigger huge inheritance / estate taxes when he finally died.
The four siblings formed a company called All County Building Supply & Maintenance in 1992 and began using that entity to move assets from Trump Management (Fred's core shell company) through All County then into whatever the siblings wanted. By the time Fred's wife died in 2000, the All County shell game was so effective that the paper valuation claimed by the Trump lawyers for Fred's estate was $51 million dollars.
The coup de grace on all of this wheeling and dealing? Donald Trump, in need of ever more infusions of immediate cash to cover other immediate issues, got the four siblings to agree to essentially liquidate all remaining properties being managed by Trump Management, his father's firm, in 2004. Banks involved in the deal had collected appraisals and related material putting the total value of those assets around $1 billion dollars. (And that's AFTER the four Trump siblings had been siphoning off free cash out of Trump Management since 1992.) The siblings left it up to Donald Trump to close the deal. How much did Art of the Deal Donald nab for the fire sale? $705,600,000. Yup, the certified stable genius left $300 million dollars on the table.
The takeaway from all of this is that the game of financial three card monte that Donald Trump and his three Trump siblings played with assets from Trump Management between 1992 and its eventual liquidation in 2004 are still likely resulting in misstated tax filings on current investments and loan paperwork signed since 2004, triggering ongoing criminal acts. One would think those crimes should be simple enough for a law firm summer intern to map to specific criminal code violations, summarize in 100-200 pages for a competent, ethical prosecuting attorney and have that attorney drag all four of them to criminal court and win. These aren't IRS tax audit judgement calls about proper interpretation of job hunting expenses or claiming more than $0.575/ mile for mileage on a personal vehicle used for business. These facts involve money laundering and tax fraud to the tune of $700 million dollars. There's no need for tracking down overseas investors from Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Russia as witnesses. All of the crimes probably took place within a fifty mile radius of downtown Manhattan across three states. All of the principles and their lawyers who helped them perpetrate the crimes are American citizens. One of them is a really important American citizen. He's President of the United States.
WTH
