Journalist Details Donald Trump’s ‘Extensive’ Mob Ties
At virtually every turn in the early months of the presidential primary season, Donald Trump has looked and functioned like some sort of Teflon-coated candidate.
Despite ruffling feathers with comments about veterans and Mexicans, as well as a spate of controversies over dated allegations of misogyny and marital rape, Trump’s poll numbers continue to rise week after week. Now, an investigative journalist is raising questions regarding the real estate mogul’s business ties to organized crime with a report that could ultimately affect Trump’s appeal to voters.
Wayne Barrett, a New York journalist who wrote a 1992 unauthorized biography of Donald Trump, recently spoke to CNN, sharing his findings regarding the presidential candidate’s past business relationships with gangsters. In presenting Barrett’s findings, CNN noted that Trump’s ties to organized crime allegedly involve documented endeavors with mob-controlled construction companies in New York and Philadelphia during the 1980s and 1990s.
“There was a certain amount of mob association during which the father and he were building, which was very difficult to avoid in the New York construction world,” Barrett told CNN, “He went out of his way not to avoid them, but to increase them.”
The Federalist also took an in-depth look at the possibility that Trump may have dealt with some unseemly characters and entities over the course of his storied career. Once again drawing on the work of Wayne Barrett, reported David Marcus traces The Donald’s earliest entanglements with the mob to a real estate purchase from notorious Philly mobster Salvatore Testa. He also details Trump’s apparent connections to Philly crime boss Nicodemo “Little Nicky” Scarfo and convicted murderer Phillip “Crazy Phil” Leonetti, who were apparently involved in the construction of Trump Plaza in Atlantic City.
CNN reportedly reached out to Trump’s campaign regarding Wayne Barrett’s comments but did not receive a response. As for the candidate himself, he’s shown a recurring penchant for handling controversy head-on, so it’s likely he’ll speak out prior to the much-anticipated Republican debate. But given the lengthy list of documented involvements with some of America’s most dangerous gangsters, Donald Trump might do well to meet this new challenge not with his signature outbursts of threats and name-calling but with substantive and qualitative defense of his integrity, because that is precisely what’s on the line this time around.
[Image courtesy of: Getty Images/Scott Olson]
