I apologize for not having more time to write today, so instead I’m giving you some timely reading assignments. For example, there’s this old piece by Wayne Barrett about how Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump got their start together:
Rudy and Donald first got together in the late 1980s shortly before Donald became a co-chair of Giuliani’s first fundraiser for his 1989 mayoral campaign, sitting on the Waldorf dais and steering $41,000 to the campaign. A year earlier, Tony Lombardi, the federal agent closest to then-U.S. Attorney Giuliani, opened a probe of Trump’s role in the suspect sale of two Trump Tower apartments to Robert Hopkins, the mob-connected head of the city’s largest gambling ring.
Trump attended the closing himself and Hopkins arrived with a briefcase loaded with up to $200,000 in cash, a deposit the soon-to-felon counted at the table. Despite Hopkins’ wholesale lack of verifiable income or assets, he got a loan from a Jersey bank that did business with Trump’s casino. A Trump limo delivered the cash to the bank.
The government subsequently nailed Hopkins’ mortgage broker, Frank LaMagra, on an unrelated charge and he offered to give up Donald, claiming Trump “participated” in the money-laundering — and volunteering to wear a wire on him.
Instead, Lombardi, who discussed the case with Giuliani personally (and with me for a 1993 Village Voice piece called “The Case of the Missing Case”), went straight to Donald for two hour-long interviews with him. Within weeks of the interviews, Donald announced he’d raise $2 million in a half hour if Rudy ran for mayor. Lamagra got no deal and was convicted, as was his mob associate, Louis (Louie HaHa) Attanasio, who was later also nailed for seven underworld murders. Hopkins was convicted of running his gambling operation partly out of the Trump Tower apartment, where he was arrested.
Lombardi — who expected a top appointment in a Giuliani mayoralty, conducted several other probes directly tied to Giuliani political opponents, and testified later that “every day I came to work I went to Mr. Giuliani to seek out what duties I needed to perform” — closed the Trump investigation without even giving it a case number. That meant that New Jersey gaming authorities would never know it existed.
You’ll want to know about this Robert Hopkins guy and his roommate in the Trump Tower condo. As an added bonus, you’ll learn all about why there so many Ray’s Pizza restaurants in New York City.
I know this is old news, but it’s going to matter now that prosecutors are crawling all over Michael Cohen and his associates’ business practices. It also helps explain why Giuliani has the kind of bond and trust with Trump to take on the job no one else wants.
It may be old news to you and other New Yorkers (I know you live near Philly) but 95% of America don’t realize that Trump has been a mob-connected criminal since at least the 1980s. Russia knows, of course, if only because the NYC Russian Mob let it be known he was an easy touch.
Trump is a spectacular example of the MSM’s tendency to treat politics and especially a Presidential election as pure infotainment. This is specially true of network/cable TV but also some papers (social media is much more complex). Trump is also an example of the very longstanding white supremacist and patriarchal hegemony that calls itself “Real America”. Needless to say, as a master conman Trump knew this about the media, which is why he is so both contemptuous of them and addicted to them.
Also, the GOP Congress knows Trump is a criminal but they don’t care so long as he does their bidding. The Rule of Law is for Democrats and POC not Republicans.
A lot of this stuff I did not know about Trump until he ran for president. It’s not like all of it was reported in NYC either. Or, more accurately, they were passing stories that were easy to miss because why would you care?
I knew, and most intelligent, honest New Yorkers knew as well. The smell of lies and corruption comes off him as if he was a corpse. He’s like Giuliani and Christie that way, only even worse.
Why would you care?
Because he is a BOSS creep, that’s why. A talented creep. Always scheming, always dangerous. Not human in any identifiable way whatsoever.
AG
The Republic is broken (and really tawdry).
That it is.
AG
There are so many others that knew about the Donald and Rudy. Two that come to mind…Coumo and Chistie…and they want to be president.
I’ve been turning over a hunch in my head the last few days in relation to the newest round of Trump connected criminal activity involving New York and New Jersey crime connections, money laundering, and dubious real estate deals. The thing that’s on my mind is this: In the last year or so have there been times when Robert Mueller and his Premier League investigative team had moments of utter disbelief and disappointment that state’s attorneys and district attorneys completely over-looked such obvious and rampant corruption the past thirty years with everything connected to Trump, the traditional mob, and the new Russian players? The exasperation might be articulated thus, “How in the hell did this slip by unnoticed?” Whiffs of complacency and incompetence may fill their nostrils. The only comforting thought I have is, at least now, the stench is now getting noticed.
. . . Premier League ref.
35 years of working alongside British colleagues will take you there!
I recently heard a reporter discuss how, some years back, NYC did an internal study (got leaked) on the economic impact of money laundering through high end real estate in Manhattan.
The findings concluded it was easier to name the real estate deals that WEREN’T likely money laundering fronts than to list those that were. BUT, the deals were still paying their taxes, fees, and employing lots of people. Therefore to stop it would bankrupt the city and cause a regional recession.
In short, the City decided to look the other way in the name of keeping Manhattan economically prosperous. Trump et al. thrived, and here we are.
“Complacency and incompetence?”
Maybe, but I think it goes deeper than that.
More like embedded corruption at the highest levels of government.
AG
When I think of the deal that got Whitewater started down the road of special prosecutors and the phony pearl clutching clamor for impeachment, this one thing is more than comparable. And yet, this is one of many such “things” with this candidate and subsequent administration that, each on their own that would be sufficient for republicans, with respective hair on fire, to raise the alarms and demand impeachment, “for the good of the nation.” And for the press to approach reporting on GOP claims as factual and sincere.
The point here is not hypocritical republicans as it is a lazy, suckered press. Trump clearly has mob ties, has had them for years, and yet the press reported none of this with the amplification they gave Clinton emails.
I don’t believe Trump would be president had the press reported on this in 2016 the way a functioning press would, or in the way they would have had Trump been a democratic candidate for president.
Please put down the broad brush.
I have a relative who has spent a long and distinguished career investigating and reporting on financial fraud, including the mob. He went back to review the articles he wrote for a major publication that were specifically on Trump and his mob connections. Over 20 stories beginning in the 1980’s.
Yes. This was common knowledge until the media essentially stopped examining him a few years ago. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe because he became a media “star” with his bullshit reality show.
Money talks, nobody walks.
Almost nobody, anyway.
Later…
AG