10/04/18 10/04/18 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from pacificathis is democracy now! pres. trump: it has not been easy for me. i started off in brooklyn. my father gave me a small loan of $1 million. i came into manhattan and i had to pay him back with interest. amy: while president has often described himself as a self-made billionaire, a major "new york times" expose has revealed trump inherited his family's wealth through tax dodges and outright fraud.

we will speak to pulitzer prize winning journalist david barstow, the author of the expose. >> president trump participated in tax schemes including outright fraud, that greatly increased the size of the inherited fortune he received from his parents, including such things as setting up sham corporations that were intended to basically drain cash from his father's real estate empire without paying taxes. amy: there are no calls for city , state, federal probes into president trump's track -- tax practices. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the fbi has completed its limited, supplemental investigation into sexual misconduct claims about supreme

court nominee brett kavanaugh, with u.s. senators set to review the fbi's summaries of interviews with witnesses today. the report will not be made public. instead, senators from each party will take one hour turns to review a single copy of the fbi document in a secure room in the basement of the capitol. fbi agents did not interview dr. blasey ford or judge kavanaugh for their investigation, nor do they interview a third kavanaugh accuser, julie swetnick. democrats have blasted the fbi's limited scope and short timetable for the investigation. they are also questioning the impartiality of fbi director christpher wray, who was two years behind kavanaugh at yale as an undergraduate and at yale law school, and they both work together on the ken starr that led ton

president clinton's impeachment trial. that led to president clinton's impeachment trial. on wednesday evening, senate majority leader mitch mcconnell ordered a procedural vote for friday to end debate on kavanaugh's nomination, a vote by the full senate to confirm kavanaugh as a supreme court justice could come as early as saturday. meanwhile, a handful of key republicans have blasted president trump for mocking dr. blasey ford. this is trump speaking out a campaign rally in mississippi tuesday. pres. trump: 36 years ago this happened. i had one beer. i had one beer. well, -- nope, it was one beer. how did you get home? i don't remember. where is the place? i don't remember. how many years ago was it? i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. i don't know. amy: alaska republican senator lisa murkowski called trump's comments "wholly inappropriate and in my view unacceptable." this is maine republican senator susan collins. >> comments were just plain

wrong. amy: arizona republican senator jeff flake called trump's mockery appalling. at the white house, press secretary sarah huckabee sanders defended trump's comments. >> the president was stating the facts. frankly, facts that were included in special prosecutor rachel mitchell's report. he was stating facts that were given during dr. ford's testimony. the senate has to make a decision based on those facts. amy: meanwhile, more than 1200 law professors have signed an open letter to the senate opposing judge kavanaugh's confirmation, arguing he lacks the judicial temperament to be a supreme court justice. in yemen, the world health organization warns the world's worst humanitarian crisis is growing more severe, with about 10,000 new cases of cholera appearing each week. the w.h.o. says the water-borne disease is spreading rapidly since much of yemen's sanitation and medical infrastructure has been destroyed by a u.s.-backed, saudi-led bombing campaign. in august, u.n. human rights

experts accused the saudi-led coalition of committing possible war crimes, including the bombing and shelling of schools, hospitals, and markets. this comes as president trump praised saudi arabia and its ruler, king salman, but said the monarchy would quickly collapse without u.s. support. trump was speaking tuesday at a campaign rally in mississippi. pres. trump: we protect saudi arabia. when you say they are rich? and i love the king. but i said, king, we're protecting you. you might not be there for two weeks without us. you have to pay for your military. you have to pay. amy: meanwhile, the whereabouts of prominent saudi journalist jamal khashoggi remains unknown after he visited the saudi consulate in istanbul, turkey, on tuesday, seeking a document he needs to get married -- and hasn't been seen since.

himfiancee waited for outside until after midnight, returning on one's a morning. khashoggi, who is a columnist for "the washington post" and lives in the united states, is a fierce critic of saudi leadership. his loved ones believe he may have been detained by saudi authorities. in the gaza strip, israeli forces killed a palestinian teenager on wednesday as he joined a protest near the separation barrier with israel. gaza health officials say the teenager died after he was struck in the head by a tear gas canister fired by an israeli soldier. this is palestinian medic basheer hussein. canister this size, around 12 centimeters, 15 centimeters, entered his head. he was bleeding and we cannot control it. he was bleeding so much from his brain. amy: israeli soldiers have killed at least 193 palestinians since the march 30 great march of return protests began in the besieged gaza strip. another 18,000 palestinians have been injured according to health officials in gaza. secretary of state mike pompeo

is withdrawing the u.s. from a 1955 treaty with iran after the u.n.'s highest court ordered the lifting of some of the sanctions it has imposed on iran since may. the treaty gives jurisdiction to the u.n.'s international court of justice on issues between the two nations. national security adviser john bolton called the icj "politicized and ineffective" and said that the trump administration will review agreements that could be subject to binding decisions by the court. a california judge has temporarily blocked the trump administration's move to end temporary protected status for 300,000 immigrants from sudan, haiti, el salvador, and nicaragua. u.s. district judge edward chen said there was no justification for the move and raised president trump's previous racist and xenophobic comments saying there were "serious questions as to whether a discriminatory purpose was a motivating factor."

in january, trump reportedly told lawmakers that haiti, el salvador, and unspecified african nations were "s-hole countries." and in 2017, he said that recent immigrants from haiti "all have aids." a new report by the department of homeland security's inspector general finds the trump administration was woefully unprepared to enforce the president's zero-tolerance border policy, with migrant children held in detention centers far longer than the law -- legally allowed. the investigation also found border agents gave inconsistent information to immigrant parents arriving in thunited stes, often failing to explain that they were about to be separated from their children. and the reportound dhs's computer systems were unable to track separated family members, delaying, and in some cases preventing officials from , meeting a court order to reunite families. the finding directly contradicts this testimony by health and human services secretary alex

azar to congress last june. >> there is no reason why any parent would not know where their child is located. i could come at the stroke -- a keystroke -- i sat on the orr portable just basic keystrokes, within seconds, could find any child in our care for any parent. amy: in fact, the report found there was no shared database between the department of homeland security and the health department's office of refugee resettlement, known as orr. in texas, immigrant rights groups say that immigrant fathers and some of their children have ended their hunger strike at karnes county detention center, a for-profit immigration jail under contract with ice. the fathers had been previously separated from their children at the u.s.-mexico border under the trump administration's zero-tolerance crackdown. advocates say the fathers were threatened with once again being separated from their children for striking. monstrats rallieover the weend to sw supporfor the famies insidkarnes. thiss one ofhe hunge strirs speakg by pho with the xas refue and imgrant netwk during the strike.

jennifer sixn months. i can't handle it anymore. the children can't, either. we thank you so much because we feel demoralized. we have been punished for too long. we heard rumors of the rally. they raised the volume so we cannot hear you chanting. amy: meanwhile, in washington, one immigrant detainee at the northwest detention center had been on hunger strike for 43 days as of wednesday. the trump administration has asked the supreme court to block commerce secretary wilbur ross from being deposed in relation to the involvement of the addition of a question in the 2020 census. last month, it was reported that ross lied under oath about the controversial citizenship question in the census. ross claimed the justice department requested the addition of the question, but surfaced emails contradict that statement, showing that he was the one who approached the doj

about including the question after consulting with senior white house officials. the request to the supreme court from the doj argued that ross' "mental state" could be probed if deposed. at the vatican, pope francis opened a month-long international gathering of bishops to discuss the ongoing wednesday sexual abuse crisis in the catholic church. pope francis condemned clericalism, which refers to the extreme deference to members of the clergy, in his remarks. >> clericalism is a perversion and it is the root of many evils in the church. we must humbly ask for forgiveness for this, and above all, create the conditions so it is not repeated. amy: meanwhile, a small group of abuse survivors demonstrated near the staged official meeting, demanding their voices be heard and accusing the church officials of hosting delegates that were involved in covering up abuse. a peruvian judge has overturned a pardon of alberto fujimori, ordering the former dictator to return to prison for crimes

including kidnapping, bribery, and ordering massacres by death squads in the 1990's. amnesty international hailed the decision, saying it "sends a clear message that crimes against humanity cannot go unpunished." this is gisela ortiz perea, whose sister was murdered by a fujimori-backed death squad in 1992. >>, close relative of the victim. i saw with my own eyes each criminal. i experienced this horrible death that occurred in my family, the suffering that is engraved in my memory year after year. it is awful to constantly have in my mind the face of the criminals and the most horrible thing is that are people who continue to call us terrorists. amy: in louisiana, police arrested three women protesters wednesday after one demonstrator scaled a crane at a construction site for the 163-mile bayou bridge pipeline and two others locked themselves to its base, temporarily halting construction. the pipeline is being built by

energy transfer partners, the same company behind the controversial dakota access pipeline. those arrested face felony charges under a harsh new anti-protest law signed by louisiana's governor earlier this year. in chicago, a jury will begin deliberating the fate today of officer jason van dyke, who faces a first-degree murder charge for killing african-american teenager laquan mcdonald in october of 2014. laquan was the killing was 17. captured on a police dash cam video released under court order, which clearly contradicted police claims about the shooting. the video shows the teenager posing no threat and walking away from the officers before van dyke opened fire 16 times, shooting mcdonald in the neck, chest, back, both arms, right leg, and head. this is officer van dyke being cross-examined by prosecutor jody gleason on tuesday. >> did you make a decision about the shooting that night?

>> yes, i did. >> when was that? >> once i noticed he hit the ground. >> he hit the ground and you continue to shoot, correct? >> on my approach, yes. amy: former maldives president mohamed nasheed has announced plans to return to the island nation 1 after over two years in november exile. nasheed came to power as the first democratically elected leader of the maldives in 2008 and became recognized internationally for his leadership on climate change. his presidency ended in 2012 in what many believe was a coup d'etat orchestrated by the opposition and supported by the military. he was charged under the maldives anti-terrorism act in 2015, a charge that amnesty international described as politically motivated before seeking exile in the u.k. last week, the maldives voted out strongman leader abdulla yameen, who has been plagued by accusations of corruption, in favor of ibrahim mohamed solih of the maldivian democratic party, the party that nasheed co-founded.

this is nasheed appearing on democracy now! in 2016. >> get all of the opposition groups together and see how we might be able to get the country path.n democratic for that, we have been able to come out with a united itssition where most of shadow leaders are behind bars in jail, but we have a shadow push forhat would reforms, that would also hopefully look to see how we might be able to have a transitional arrangement that would take us to free and fair elections. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. nermeen: and i'm nermeen shaikh. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world.

the new york state department of taxation and finance has opened an investigation of president trump for fraud and tax evasion following a major expose by "the new york times." new york city mayor bill de blasio has also called for a city probe. democratic senator ron wyden has urged the irs to investigate the president. "the times" revealed trump inherited much of his family's wealth through tax dodges and outright fraud, receiving at least $413 million in inflation-adjusted dollars from his father's real estate empire. "the times'" 13,000-word investigative report found the late fred and mary trump transferred more than $1 billion in wealth to their children, and much of it to donald trump, paying less than 5% of the $550 million in taxes they should have under inheritance tax rates.

as part of a scheme to reduce taxes, donald trump also helped his parents undervalue real estate holdings by hundreds of millions of dollars in irs tax returns. amy: "the new york times" also reports trump earned $200,000 a year in today's dollars from his parents' companies beginning at the age of three, with a salary that increased to $1 million a year after trump graduated college, and to $5 million a year when trump was in his forties. over the years, trump has repeatedly portrayed himself as a self-made billionaire whose only head start was a "small loan of a million dollars" from his father. pres. trump: it has not been easy for me. off inw, i started brooklyn. my father damien a small loan of $1 million. i came into manhattan. i had to pay him back with interest. say, donald, don't go into manhattan. that is the big leagues. we don't know anything about that. don't do it.

i said, dad, i got to build those big buildings. i built what i did myself a negative by working long hours and hard and smart. mye importantly, by using own brand. there was a point where i was making so much so fast and it was so easy, that i almost got bored. i got a very, very small loan from my father many years ago. i built that into a massive empire. i paid my father back that loan. nermeen: on wednesday, president trump attacked "the new york times." he tweeted -- "the failing 'new york times' did something i have never seen done before. "timesed the concept of value of money" in doing a very old, boring and often told hit piece on me. added up, this means that 97% of their stories on me are bad. never recovered from bad election call!" amy: "the times" article was based on public records as well as tens of thousands of confidential documents including bank statements, financial audits, accounting ledgers, cash disbursement reports, invoices

and canceled checks. the documents include more than 200 tax returns of the late fred includeut do -- don't the president's personal tax returns, which he has refuseto release. white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders responded to the article during wednesday's press briefing. >> i'm not going to sit and go through every single line of a very boring 14,000 word story. the only thing -- i will say one thing the article to get right, it should the president's father actually had a great hill of confidence in him. in fact, the president brought his father into a lot of deals and they made a lot of money together, so much so his father went on to say that everything he touched turned of the gold. the president's lawyer addressed some of the specific claims and walks through how the allegations of fraud and tax evasion are 100% false and highly defamatory. there was no fraud or tax evasion by anyone. he went much further, and i would encourage you to read

every word of his statement, which completely undercuts the accusations made by "the new york times." amy: we are joined now by david barstow. he is a three-time pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter for "the new york times." lead author on a new investigation revealing the original source of president trump's wealth. david barstow shares a byline with susanne craig and russ buettner on "the new york times" exclusive "trump engaged in suspect tax schemes as he reaped riches from his father." welcome to democracy now! you have been attacked by the white house for what you have done. called old and boring. called old and boring. this was a mass of his, which is being reissued on sunday, is that right, by "the new york times"? many page keys headlined "trump took part in suspect schemes to evade taxes." what rear key findings? how we found it was

the old-fashioned way. going to courthouses. scouring public records, knocking on a lot of doors and gradually, over many months, piecing together building together this trove of documents. over 100,000 pages. by the time we were ready to publish. significantly,t in terms of, for people to be able to assess this story, it is important to know that this includes literally tens of thousands of pages of never before seen documentation of the actual interworking's of fred trump's real estate empire. nermeen: but those documents were confidential records, so

you couldn't have gotten those from the public record. >> you get those by knocking on doors. nermeen: and what doors? >> i'm not going to talk about it, but good try. amy: talk about your findings, particularly what you say is this legal transfer of wealth. >> i think there are two core findings. one is simply that the narrative that donald trump has sold to the public for many decades now, the thing that made him famous, they gave him political power, and ultimately i think was the central focus of his presidential campaign is this narrative that he is a self-made billionaire. and what the story really reveals is the extent to which that simply does not square with the facts that are uncovered and that we show in this story. so i think that is point number one. point number two is, not only

did he receive $413 million from his father, not only did he receive another $140 million in today's dollars in loans from his father, but that that amount, the amount of money, was significantly increased by a series of tax schemes that the tax experts we consulted with in our reporting, laying this out to them, said these things go way beyond the normal tax avoidance strategies that wealthy, sophisticated people will employee in any event to lower their tax bill. these -- this was a set of maneuvers that were actually intended to deceive the irs about the value of things that were being given from fred and mary trump to donald trump and his siblings. i think those are the two main points. there's a huge amount of money

flowing, not just when he was a young man, but actually throughout donald's life, especially when he was in financial difficulties, especially when he was taking on new projects, and that that river of money was fed very much so by tax evasion, tax dodges. amy: tax evasion and tax dodges. we're going to find out just what those were. we're speaking to pulitzer prize-winning analyst david barstow who is just been attacked by the white house for this massive expose in "the new york times" about how donald trump gained his wealth. stay with us. ♪ [music break]

amy: "old man trump" by ryan harvey, with ani difranco and tom morello. the song was written, but never

recorded by woody guthrie about his landlord, donald trump's father fred trump. in the 1950's, trump lived in a trump's-owned -- woody guthrie trump-owned building in brooklyn. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. "the new york times" expose, the reporters referenced several reporters who did groundbreaking work on trump's finances. one of them was the late wayne barrett who wrote the book "trump: the deals and the downfall." he appeared on [captioning made possible by democracy now!] in 2016 and said fred trump's financial support of donald trump was "unbelievably crucial in donald's rise to prominence. >> be opened his first office in manhattan, the rent was paid by his father's company out here on avenue the and brooklyn. everything that he did, whether

be the grand hyatt, for example, to get the financing, he got the financing from two banks that his father had used, used his father's relationship banker. and the father had to sign the financing agreements. they're not going to get a 30 million in 1978 to build a hotel. it has to be done with fred's resources and fred trump was a great outer borough builder and really build good housing, 20,000 units totally, all over queens, all over brooklyn. some of them like trump village, many of them civil family homes -- single-family homes. he was politically wired as his son was. gameslayed political expertly. it fred trump was indispensable. even trump tower, which comes career,ter in donald's

could not have been done without fred coming in and supporting the financing of it. when he opened his first casino in atlantic city, when you bought the first properties, leaseholds for the first properties for trump plaza, his casino in atlantic city, fred wrote down in the limo for him and sign all of the leasehold documents. nobody was going to be financing this kid developer, kid casino operator. it was fred who was the key to all of it. it is so ridiculous for him to call himself a self-made guy when fred was critical. and everything that came to donald came through political connections will stop they were political connections forged by his father over decades with brooklyn politicians. he came from the same political club as then mayor of new york.

an option for the grand hyatt and for the west side yards from a bankrupt railroad in whoadelphia, and the people are selling the assets of the bankrupt railroad wanted to make sure the option they gave, they were giving it to a developer who would actually develop because that is when the real pay comes to the railroad. they came up from philadelphia. fred trump greets them. fred and donald get them in a limo and take them down to city hall. there is the mayor saying, "anything you want, we will give you." this is totally a byproduct of fritz relationships. amy: that is the great reporter wayne barrett who dr. president trump,- dogged president donald trump, long before he was president and wrote a book about him. juan gonzalez and i went to his house to give you him just before he died.

david barstow, your three-time pulitzer prize-winning journalist. wayne is one of your colleagues. you cite him in your piece. he is giving us some sense of who fred trump was. --o back to the beginning but go back to -- but go back to the beginning and talking about baby trump, that is baby donald trump, and how he started to accrue this wealth, something very different than he has told. so how does a three year old end up making $200,000 a year? that is a good question. here is how it worked. know, wayne is absolutely right that he was a really great builder in the outer boroughs. but much of his building was actually made possible through federal housing subsidies. he was actually one of the country's biggest recipients of cheap building loans, basically made possible by the federal government.

and he used $26 million or so of those cheap loans to build two of his biggest apartment complexes in new york, a place called beach haven and a place called sure haven, both out in brooklyn. these are massive, massive apartment complexes, thousands and thousands of units. so he is building those in the late 1940's. what he did was something quite clever. land underneath the buildings into a trust, and made his children the beneficiaries of that trust. companiesd the -- his that were actually building the buildings on top of the land sign 99 year leases to pay rent s, his youngord' children. that meant donald trump, starting at age three, was fred trump's landlord. he was collecting rent payments

from fred trump's companies. it was this kind of maneuver, setting up these financial mechanisms, that would create this automatic streams of money that would just sort of month by month by month would trickle in trust accounts or into partnerships and find their way, ultimately, into the pockets of his children. fred trump was just a genius at coming up with new ways, new revenue streams to funnel into the pockets of his children. so he did not just make his children his landlord. he also made his children his banker. -- did notald trump just put him on the seller is a vice president of fred trump's companies, he also then paid him separately to be his consultant. he paid him separately to be a property manager. a paid him separately to be

purchasing agent. and on and on and on it went. as we gathered up all of the records from inside of fred trump's real estate empire, we started counting up how many different revenue streams as he created for donald trump through the years? 295 is what weo counted, what we were able to document. some of these things, you know, they were not in and of themselves big money. for example, fred trump funnel the laundry revenue from his buildings to donald. that is not a lot of money, but when you sort of start aggregating it, putting it all together, it is just this mighty endless river of money flowing constantly into the bank accounts of donald trump. nermeen: one of the things you do in your piece is you give a

very strong sense of the extent to which fred trump seemed to have a special relationship with donald trump, because you explain that so much of the money accrued to donald trump is against his other children. what did you learn about why that would be the case? also, the principal illegality -- i mean, what he spoke of beach haven and sure haven, the responsibility for itt is fred trump's, and is technically illegal what he did? >> in that transaction, there's nothing illel about at transaction we have uncovered. that is not the point i'm trying to make. that is an example, though, of one of the many different ways that fred trump was enriching donald trump starting from a very early age and continuing on of forward. the other point? nermeen: the relationship between fred and donald.

why did he give so much money -- >> fred trump had an older son, who was going, to be theheir apparent. passtrump really wanted to this dynasty on to one of his children. and fred jr. was sort of the first natural heir apparent as the oldest son. he did not have the passion for the business. he had other interests. you like to fly airplanes. he loved music. fred trump the father considered fred trump the son to be a little too soft, little too nice. clearfore long, it became that he was not going to be the heir apparent. going to becare was

donald trump will stop donald trump was very aware of his father's disapproval of fred jr. fred sr. could be quite cruel. i think what we see -- this is from interviews from people who worked closely with fred trump -- they witnessed this young man, donald trump, sort of watching what has happened to fred jr. and almost forming himself into fred jr.'s opposite. fred jr. was too soft and two nights, then donald was going to be a shark, a killer. so i think that is at the core of this father-son relationship, which is very much with the story is about. it is about a father-son relationship. these two men were extraordinarily close. donald trump said, we quote him that he felt he knew his father better than anybody else in the world.

daily -- talked daily. they were in constant communication. donald trump was a constant prence. when fred trump would have started the dust strategy sessions with this top lawyers and accountants, figuring out what his next moves were, fred trump was often the sort of silent lurking presence at donald trump's flashy press conferences. than just a father-son relationship. it was also a partnership. amy: it is interesting you talk about the amount of federal trump that fred got. as donald came into the business, they were getting sued because they were getting federal support and they were discriminating against african-americans. i want to read from your report, david barstow. you write --

"the most overt fraud was all county building supply & maintenance, a company formed by the trump family in 1992. all county's ostensible purpose was to be the purchasing agent for fred trump's buildings, buying everything from boilers to cleaning supplies. it did no such thing, records and interviews show. instead all county siphoned millions of dollars from fred trump's empire by simply marking up purchases already made by his employees. those millions, effectively untaxed gifts, then flowed to all county's owners -- donald trump, his siblings and a cousin. fred trump then used the padded all county receipts to justify bigger rent increases for thousands of tenants." >> yeah. this is something -- when donald says this is old news, i continue that no one has ever heard of all county building supply and maintenance. it has never been written about, described anywhere. and this is kind of a remarkable in a way -- when we were appealing back the layers on this, it felt like one of these gritty stands you might see in the sopranos.

it is setting up this company to make basically huge cash gifts from fred trump to his children look like legitimate business transactions. let me give you a simple example. this is one we describe and we actually show in the story the actual invoices and purchase orders, so you can all see for yourself exactly what i'm talking about. company, not as real company, there's no corporate offices. it is headquartered in the basement of fred trump's favorite nephew. the owners of all county building supply were fred trump's four children and his nephew. so -- anyappened -- time trump was going to improve his buildings, he had to buy stuff, right? in this case, soon after they formed this company, they bought 60 boilers. 60, expensive boilers from a company in the bronx.

fred trump himself personally negotiated the purchase price of these boilers. hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of boilers. the man who sold fred trump these boilers, leon eastman, told me in an interview that one day he comes back to his offices and there is an envelope and there is a check, a huge check, from this company all county building supply. he said, who the heck are these guys? never heard of them. and what that was was it was all county building supply was paying him the price that fred trump had negotiated, but then all county building supply would turn around and would send an invoice to fred trump for the very same boilers but the 20%,ce was added, mark up 30%, 50% more. invoiceasically just an

patting operation will stop it was taking the things that fred trump was already buying and 20%, 40%, 100% more and then charging fred trump -- fred trump was effectively over charging himself, is what it looked like on paper. but in fact, all of those profits are than flowing directly to his children. that is point number one. 46: donald trump is like when all county was set up. >> absolutely. and this is part of a fairly well considered orchestrated strategy that the trump family came up with when they realized, you know, fred trump is getting up there in age, he is starting effects, some ill dementia, other problems. they are realizing, if he dies, all of his empire come all of the buildings and huge amounts of cash sitting in his accounts, those are going to be subject to a 55% tax, inheritance tax.

so the idea was, wait a minute, how do we pull that cash out of the empire before it gets taxed 55%? how do we shift all of those buildings into our pockets before they get taxed 55%? in this case, i think one of the things in all county building supply case -- and i think it helps you sort of see at least the mindset here is not only do they come up with this ruse disguise to disk -- them as legitimate business transactions, but they submitted those padded invoices to the state regulators who govern rent increases in new york, and they used those inflated invoices in order to justify rent increases for thousands of the tenants who lived in fred trump's apartments.

these areu know, working class, middle class folks who are seeing their rents go up five dollars, $10, $15 a month in part because of these inflated invoices from all county building supply and maintenance. nermeen: can you speak specifically about the start city development in brooklyn, which fred trump made an investment in in the 1970's? >> yes. it is really one of the largest federally subsidized housing developments in the country. it is massive will stop it is even bigger than fred trump's apartment complexes. in the 1970's when they were trying to build sterritt city, they needed some extra money. there were looking for private investments. it was basically going to be this investment that would create huge tax losses. that is why rich people wanted to get in on sterritt city. it would create huge tax losses.

for a trump could use his losses to shelter all of his profits from his empire. so he made an investment in just their city, but he also made an investment for his kids as well. so donald trump, starting at a very early age, was getting these huge tax breaks from stairs city. those tax breaks helped them avoid paying any federal income taxes at all in the late 1970's. and then of course, as time progresses, stare at city is now worth a heck of a lot of money. nearly $1y sold for billion. in fact, that investment that fred trump made way back in the 1970's is going to give donald trump a windfall of $16 million this year. amy: before we got her break, how much money would you say fred trump avoided in taxes? >> hundreds of millions of dollars. amy: i think you said $50 million instead of half $1

billion? >> it is pretty simple math. with see he transferred will over $1 billion in wealth to his siblings. 55% tax rate. you are talking about a tax will , and expected tax bill of around 550 million dollars. the tax records that we obtained show the trump family paid $52 million in gift and estate taxes. 55% tax rate,ying they paid about a 5% tax rate. the question is, how do they avoid the other $500 million? what happened? to that? first of all, just be clear, we certainly don't say in the story and we don't allege anywhere that every penny of that was evaded money. some of it was just usual tax avoidance measures that all rich people use. but certainly, a very significant portion of that came through tax schemes and

maneuvers the experts that we consulted with said really crossed the line. amy: we're going to go to break and come back to this discussion. what was illegal, what was improper? david barstow, the reporter on this massive 13,000 word piece investigating donald trump's wealth and where it came from. the title "trump engaged in , suspect tax schemes as he reaped riches from his father." back with david barstow in a moment. ♪ [music break]

amy: "tryin' times" by roberta flack. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. our guest for the hour is the three-time pulitzer president journalist david barstow, did a massive expose in "the new york times" that is going to be reissued on sunday. tax responded

that it is "vigorously pursuing all appropriate avenues an investigation." meanwhile, new york mayor bill de blasio tweeted -- "i've directed nyc's department of finance to immediately investigate tax and housing violations and to work with ny state to find out if appropriate taxes were paid." the mayor told reporters he is looking to recoup any money trump owes new york city. >> there was a good old boy network that honestly am a donald trump played like a fiddle. and evaded the kind of regulation and investigation and prosecution you should have received many times over. he finagled and paid his way to theg somehow able to escape kind of scrutiny and prosecution he deserved. if a lot of people in new york state has under jobs, he never would have been president of the united states. it is clear to me that there are

real ramifications right now to , thatas been disclosed there is either potential violations of the law, or in the case of statute of limitations be ended, that there may very serious civil penalties that can be applied by both the state in the city. amy: that is mayor bill de blasio responding to your investigation. what can new york recoup, new york city, new york state? and are the criminal charges at all here? grounds for charges? that clearly the statute of limitations is the big obstacle to any kind of criminal charges. however, we actually don't know what ended up in donald trump's tax returns. and so if there are things that he misreported that have their roots in some of the transactions that were described in this article, and those

misrepresentations carried forward into future tax returns from donald trump, that could be potentially problematic because that could maybe take the statute of limitations off the table as an obstacle. nermeen: and then there could be a criminal prosecution? >> potentially. although, you know, let's be real. the irs is a much weakened agency. it has been quite devastated i budget cuts over the years -- by budget cuts over the years. and certainly, the irs, not talking about state authorities now, but the federal irs, has said absolutely nothing in response to this article. realistice more accountability that there is this potential for civil fraud,

there is the statute of limitations for civil tax fraud. and so both -- in this case, the state tax authority can be very powerful weapon if they decide to actually use it to go back and look at these transactions. nermeen: let's go to some of the mechanisms that you point to in the piece that trump used in order to avoid paying taxes. are and how grats they were used. "theis video accompanying new york times" expose, your co-author susanne craig explains how trump and his siblings came to own nearly all of fred trump's empire without paying estate taxes. >> grat. the trust designed to pass wealth between generations. in 1995, donald trump and his siblings began to take ownership

of most of their father's real estate empire while avoiding hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes. they did so by creating two grantor retained renewed he trusts, also known as grats. one for dad and one for mom. taxes are based that could based on the final value of the grat, and escape the trump's every incentive to lowball. that is what they did. take for instance the apartment complex. in 1982, the trump's value of the 164 unit complex, $50.3 million. but for the purposes of the worththey said it was just 2.9 nine dollars. they broke up the ownership of their permits, giving a must have to mary trump, fred trump's wife. this allowed them to tell the irs that fred trump, who exercised ironfisted control over every break of his empire for 70 years, was a minority owner with no real say over his

buildings. nermeen: david, that is your co-author susanne craig talking about grats. could you comment on whether this instrument is what essentially gave legal cover to trump's transactions? >> grats are a well-established and legal instrument used by the wealthy to pass assets on to their children in a way that allows them to avoid estate taxes. in fact, if you watch tv, you'll often see commercials from bdo that are actually grat commercials. they do not say the word "grat" -- nermeen: what is bdo? >> a consulting firm that is actually on cnbc, sm abc, and cnn, running commercials that effectively are commercials for grats. is a technique that

when you talk to tax lawyers, they almost get a little misty eyed about grats. this is like magic. these things are incredible devices that assets go income all caps of financial gymnastics occur inside of them, and then they sort of assets come out and there like free of taxes. amy: i want to go to another of your former colleagues, david cay johnston, also a fellow pulitzer prize winner and out editor-in-chief at dcreport.org. he noted that trump's sister, federal judge them as heavily implicated in tax fraud. >> donald's sister is a sitting judge on the third circuit court of appeals. a senior judge. i tweeted today that i think she should mediately remove herself from the bench. we should not have a tax cheat in the white house or on the

federal bench. amy: what you think of this? that is david cay johnston. >> i think the important thing to say about this is that fred trump's estate tax return was a very important document. there were three executors, three people who signed off on that estate tax return. judge barry, one was president trump, and the third was robert trump, the president's younger brother. when you sign an estate tax return, you're responsible for the accuracy of that tax return. you are responsible for accurately describing the assets, and you're also responsible for describing all of the gifts that were given by the person in that estate. so what we described in our story is the estate tax return that the three of them signed, that the three of them vouched for, that tax return is grossly inaccurate.

it used all this and kind of techniques that we described in other parts of the story, and it did so in order to make what was left of fred trump's empire look like miniscule. so i think that -- the fact that she put her john hancock on that estate cap good -- tax return, i think that is an area that is potentially problematic. amy: what most surprised you, david, in what you found? >> the thing that i think continues to surprise me about donald trump is that this is a so much in then firmament of our culture and media for so long, and yet there so little that we actually know about him and his finances. there is this mountain, mountain oks ands -- bo

interviews. it is daunting to look at. but when you put all of that aside and just try to get to ground truths with this guy, every time we have done that, we feel like, oh, my gosh, the idea -- whatever the idea was that we thought we had about him, it is quite different when you pull some more layers. in a cup after fred trump's to copyright "is most valuable asset was an iou from donald trump." you say he betrayed his father in what he wanted with his empire. fred trump one of the empire to stay in his family. donald trump was in some financial difficulty in 2004, and he was the one who came into a family meeting and said, "time to sell dad's buildings." and so they did. the irony is, the price they got for all of those buildings was actually hundreds of lines of dollars less than what the actual property was worth,

according to banking records we have uncovered. amy: do you think this will force, somehow lead to sing donald trump's tax returns? this expose and the political blowback from it? >> it is hard to say. it depends so much on who is actually in control of the subpoenas in congress on the basis of what happens in the mature elections. amy: but they can subpoena them? >> sure. there is a long line of democrats who have said this story is all the more reason to exercise that subpoena power should they win -- amy: and your piece is coming out again on sunday? >> yes, as a special section. amy: david barstow is a three-time pulitzer prize-winning investigative reporter for "the new york times." lead author on a new

investigation "trump engaged in suspect tax schemes as he reaped riches from his father." that does it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013.

>> good morning. i'm president of speak, with you is sunset action project action committee. we are active in a wide range of issues. neighborhood issues. speak is excited to be a cosponsor of this event much i'm also the -- i'm also the vie president of the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. another cosponsor of this event, speak is a charter member of the coalition. the coalition has been active in citywide issues for over 40 years. on behalf of the coalition's president, welcome to the district four candidate forum. in 2002, we will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the