The big cheat : how Donald Trump fleeced America and enriched himself and his family

The big cheat How Donald Trump fleeced America and enriched himself and his family

David Cay Johnston, 1948-

Book - 2021

"Pulitzer PrizeƯ-winning reporter and dean of Trumpologists David Cay Johnston reveals years of eye-popping financial misdeeds by Donald Trump and his family. While the world watched Donald Trump's presidency in horror or delight, few noticed that his lifelong grifting quietly continued. Less than forty minutes after taking the oath of office, Trump began turning the White House into a money machine for himself, his family, and his courtiers. More than $1.7 billion flowed into Donald Trump's bank accounts during his four years as president. Foreign governments rented out whole floors of his hotel five blocks from the White House while lobbyists conducted business in the hotel's restaurants. Payday lenders and other trad...e groups moved their annual conventions to Trump golf resorts. And individual favor seekers joined his private Mar-a-Lago club with its $200,000 admission fee in hopes of getting a few minutes with the President. Despite earning more than $1 million every day he was in office, Trump left the White House as he arrived--hard up for cash. More than $400 million in debt comes due by 2024, and Trump still lacks the resources to pay it back. The Big Cheat takes you on a guided tour of how money flowed in and out of Trump's hundreds of enterprises, showing in simple terms how his family and courtiers used his presidency to enrich themselves, even putting national security at risk. Johnston details the four most recent years of the corruption that has defined the Trump family since 1885 and reveals the costs of Trump's extravagant lifestyle for American taxpayers."--Amazon.ca.

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Subjects
Trump, Donald, > 1946-
Trump family.
Corporations > Corrupt practices > United States.
Published
New York : Simon & Schuster 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
David Cay Johnston, 1948- (author)
Edition
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition
Physical Description
x, 285 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9781982178031
  • Introduction
  • 1. Original Lie
  • 2. Jobs Mirage
  • 3. Charity Doghouse
  • 4. Off the Books
  • 5. Collecting Tribute
  • 6. Don't Ask, Don't Know
  • 7. Conflicts of Interest
  • 8. Tax Scam
  • 9. Polishing Apple
  • 10. The Koch Papers
  • 11. Wall Scam
  • 12. Opportunity Knocks
  • 13. Dangerous Favors
  • 14. Expensive Juice
  • 15. The Shipping News
  • 16. Russian Money Man
  • 17. Promises, Promises
  • 18. Family First
  • 19. After Trump
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

Johnston, a Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter, has been following Donald Trump's financial affairs since 1988, when he covered the casino industry for the Philadelphia Inquirer, documenting Trump's "incompetence, ignorance, and dishonesty." This book, the third in a trio (following It's Even Worse Than You Think, 2018) that covers Trump's presidential years, focuses on how Trump enriched himself, his family, and his friends to the tune of more than a billion dollars while fleecing the government and his supporters. One of the best things about this investigation is the way Johnston presents his material in an easily understandable manner. The "emoluments clause" of the Constitution could make eyes glaze over, but Johnston explains it clearly, shows its importance, and details how the Trump family abused it for their own purposes and why we should care. Other topics are covered similarly--Russian connections, tax scams, the border wall as a lucrative opportunity, and many more. Also refreshing are the book's closing chapters. Rather than simply tsk-tsking about Trump's abuses, Johnston offers common-sense solutions for bringing transparency and integrity back to politics and government.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Pulitzer winner Johnston (It's Even Worse Than You Think) delivers a damning portrait of how "Donald Trump, his extended family, and his cronies... used his presidency to get richer, to set up lucrative future opportunities, and to escape their own financial quagmires." Alleging that Trump's modus operandi is to "promise the moon, the sky, and the stars, and then deliver rocks and sand, if that," Johnston documents the stiffing of contractors and business partners; the suspicious awarding of tax breaks, building permits, and other "goodies" to Trump Organization development projects in the Dominican Republic and India; and the surreptitious overcharging of supporters who thought they were making one-time contributions to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Most of the details are well-known to followers of the news, but Johnston weaves them into a cogent account of endemic corruption within the Trump Organization and the Trump administration, and he unearths a handful of new and telling episodes, including the story of how Trump got thrown out of New York City mayor Abe Beame's office in 1977 for physically threatening Beame over the Commodore Hotel project. The result is a devastating roundup of malfeasance. Agent: Alice Martell, the Martell Agency. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

The Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and longtime Trump-watcher delivers enough charges to fuel a few hundred indictments. Johnston opens with a scenario of desperation: In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, great numbers of low-income, poorly informed Americans longed for a savior who "would relieve their financial crisis." What they got was a "master con artist" who would "cheat them out of what they had, all the while telling them that he was really their friend and helper." Step 1: Destroy the notion of objective truth. Step 2: Send up a smokescreen of lies. Step 3: Loot the people's treasury, self-dealing while leaving scraps for other financial predators. Johnston assembles a case that's full of news and startling incidents. In one, a 29-year-old Trump assaults outgoing New York Mayor Abe Beame to strong-arm a sweetheart deal; though police officers escorted him from Beame's office, he got what he demanded. The behavioral pattern with the most staying power is not violence, however, but cheating: overstating assets, engaging in phony accounting, not paying taxes. With the power of the presidency, Trump--who, Johnston reminds us, is the only president past or present at the center of a felony investigation--opened the nation's coffers to his fellow grifters, engaging in "the kind of borrowing that made Trump infamous--money you borrow but never pay back in full and perhaps not at all." Those fellow grifters are legion, but at the top of the list are daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as former transportation secretary Elaine Chao, poster children "who illustrate the need for strict ethics training and for equally strict enforcement of laws against misusing public office." Trump's sole accomplishment, by Johnston's account, was the failed coup of Jan. 6, 2021, because it "testifies to his incompetence" while shining a light on would-be dictators waiting in the wings. True believers won't be swayed, but those inclined to despise Trump and Trumpism will find ample reinforcement. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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