"John Barron" (1980s) Trump used the alias "John Barron" (sometimes "John Baron") throughout the 1980s, with its earliest known usage in 1980 and its last acknowledgment in 1990. According to
The Washington Post, the name was a "go-to alias when [Trump] was under scrutiny, in need of a tough front man or otherwise wanting to convey a message without attaching his own name to it". Barron would be introduced as a spokesperson for Trump, and is even described as a vice president of
the Trump Organization in an article by
Robert D. McFadden. A June 6, 1980,
New York Times article quotes "John Baron, a vice president of the Trump Organization" defending Trump's controversial destruction of sculptures on the
Bonwit Teller flagship store (now the site of
Trump Tower), which he had promised to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pseudonymous vice president acted as Trump's spokesperson for three days in that case. In May 1984, "Barron" lied to then-
Forbes reporter Jonathan Greenberg about Trump's wealth and assets to get Trump on the
Forbes 400 list. "Barron" stated to Greenberg that "most of the assets [of Donald's father
Fred Trump] have been consolidated to Mr. [Donald] Trump." In April 2018, Greenberg retrieved and made public the original audio recordings of his exchange with "Barron", and stated that "Trump, through this sockpuppet, was telling me he owned 'in excess of 90 percent of Fred Trump's assets. Ultimately, Greenberg included Trump at the end of the
Forbes 400 list at $100 million, one fifth of the $500 million which "Barron" was claiming as Donald Trump's net worth. According to Greenberg, Donald Trump was only ever worth just under $5 million, which was 5% of the net worth which was attributed to him by
Forbes at the time and only 1% of what "Barron" was claiming. Greenberg has corrected the record by stating that, as revealed in court documents in proceedings years later, Donald Trump never owned any of Fred Trump's assets until 1999 after Fred's death, and even then, inheriting only his share of Fred's deceased estate, with Donald Trump's three siblings and some grandchildren beneficiaries inheriting their corresponding shares. Also in 1984, "Barron" gave the press a positive spin on the 1984 collapse of a plan to build Trump Castle in New York. In 1985, "Barron" urged fellow
United States Football League team owners to partially reimburse Trump for a high-priced player. In April 1985, "John Baron, a vice president in the Trump Organization", announced to the press that the Trump Organization had signed an agreement to buy an unopened Hilton Hotel in Atlantic City. Some New York editors recalled that "calls from Barron were at points so common that they became a recurring joke on the city desk". She says Trump later told her it was a "joke gone awry". Trump denied that he posed as John Miller to tell
People, "
Madonna called and wanted to go out with him, that I can tell you." In 2016,
The Washington Post obtained a copy of the tape and reported that it was Trump using a pseudonym. Trump denied it, saying, "It was not me on the phone." Later, when a reporter asked Trump if he had ever employed a spokesperson named John Miller, he hung up.
"Carolin Gallego" (1992) A 1992 letter to
New York magazine signed by "Carolin Gallego" replied to an article by Julie Baumgold. The letter asserted that "as his secretary" she knew Trump treated women with respect. This letter resurfaced in a 2017 article in the
Washingtonian which highlighted similarities between patterns of repetition in Trump's speech and the final line in the letter, which read: "I do not believe any man in America gets more calls from women wanting to see him, meet him, or go out with him. The most beautiful women, the most successful women—all women love Donald Trump." The
Washingtonian was unable to find any record of a Carolin Gallego as secretary to Trump and said that it was not out of the question that Trump himself had written the letter.
"David Dennison" (2016) The name "David Dennison" was used as a pseudonym for Trump by his personal lawyer
Michael Cohen in a 2016 pre-election
non-disclosure agreement with
pornographic film actress
Stormy Daniels (born Stephanie Gregory Clifford and identified in the document as Peggy Peterson) regarding her allegation that she and Trump had
an extramarital affair in 2006. Keith Davidson acted as Stormy Daniels' legal representative in that agreement. A later legal representative of Daniels,
Michael Avenatti, later claimed that Davidson was a
double agent all along working for Trump and Cohen. Paul Campos wrote in
Intelligencer that the use of the Dennison pseudonym was one of several pieces of evidence that
Elliott Broidy, who had admitted to an affair with Playboy model
Shera Bechard, was in fact covering for Donald Trump, who Campos speculated actually had the affair. This view was echoed by Will Bunch of
The Philadelphia Inquirer. ==In popular culture==