Background Donald Trump's grandparents
Frederick Trump and
Elizabeth Christ Trump were a German immigrant couple who moved to the borough of
Queens in 1907. Frederick began developing real estate there. He died during the "
Spanish flu" pandemic in 1918, leaving an estate valued at $31,359 (or about $535,381 in 2020). Elizabeth carried on in the real estate business after her husband's death. She had contractors build houses on the empty lots Frederick had owned, sold the houses, and earned income off the mortgages she provided to buyers. Her middle child, Donald Trump's father
Fred Trump, entered the carpentry trade after graduating high school in 1923. Fred would later say he completed his first single-family home in 1924, but other sources date his start as a builder to 1927. In that year, Fred reached the
age of majority, and "E. Trump & Son", a name Elizabeth had used in ads since 1921, was formally incorporated. In 1929, with Fred at the helm, the company began developing pricier houses in nearby Jamaica Estates. In the deepening
depression, the company went out of business. In 1933 Fred opened a supermarket, called "Trump Market", then quickly sold it and returned to the real estate business. Around this same time, Fred Trump and a partner acquired the
mortgage-servicing subsidiary of
Brooklyn's
J. Lehrenkrauss & Co., which had gone bankrupt and subsequently been broken up amid charges of fraud. This gave Trump access to the titles of many properties nearing
foreclosure, which he bought at low cost and sold for a profit. He quickly became known as one of New York City's most successful young businessmen. In 1935, the company moved to Brooklyn, During
World War II, Trump constructed apartments and temporary housing for military personnel in Virginia and Pennsylvania. and
Trump Village in 1964.
Leadership under Donald Trump Donald Trump worked for his father's business while attending the
University of Pennsylvania, and in 1968 officially joined the company. In the early 1970s, Fred gave himself the title chairman of the board and named Donald president of the company. Around 1973, Donald began referring to the business as the Trump Organization. The business had previously been referred to on occasion as the Fred C. Trump Organization, the Fred Trump Organization, or the Trump Organization, but had not had a single formal name.
Civil rights suit In 1973, the
U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ)
Civil Rights Division filed a
civil rights suit against the Trump Organization charging them for violating the 1968
Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to
Black people. The
National Urban League had sent Black and White testers to apply for apartments in Trump-owned complexes. The White testers got the apartments, whereas the Black testers did not. According to court records, four superintendents or rental agents reported that applications sent to the central office for acceptance or rejection were coded by race. A 1979
Village Voice article quoted a rental agent who said Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to Black people and to encourage existing Black tenants to leave. In 1975, a
consent decree described by the head of DOJ's housing division as "one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated" required Trump to advertise vacancies in minority papers and list vacancies with the Urban League. The Justice Department subsequently stated that continuing "racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents has occurred with such frequency that it has created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity." the construction of
Trump Tower in partnership with
The Equitable (1983); and the development of
Trump Plaza (1984). He also opened three casino hotels in
Atlantic City, New Jersey:
Trump Plaza (1984),
Trump Castle (1985), and
Trump Taj Mahal (1990). In 1989, New York State officials ordered the
Grand Hyatt New York, a hotel owned at the time by the Trump Organization and the Hyatt Corporation, to pay New York City $2.9 million in rent that had been withheld by the hotel in 1986 due to "unusual" accounting changes approved by Donald Trump. An investigation by New York City auditors noted that the hotel was missing basic financial records and found the hotel was using procedures that violated
generally accepted accounting principles. Amid a real estate slump in 1990, the Trump Organization approached a financial crisis and was believed to be on the brink of collapse, with Donald Trump and his companies owing 72 banks a total of $4 billion, of which Trump personally guaranteed $800 million. Trump hired
Stephen Bollenbach as the company's first
chief financial officer, while
Allen Weisselberg continued to serve under him as controller. Trump spent the following years renegotiating his debts, and gave up some properties, including the
Trump Shuttle airline and a stake in the
Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. Bollenbach left the company in 1992. In 1995, Trump took another major step towards financial stability, launching a publicly traded company for the Trump casinos,
Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts. By 1996, Trump was widely considered to be making a comeback. The casino company did not fare as well, however, and Trump eventually lost his stake in the company to bankruptcy. In 1997, Fred Trump transferred ownership of the bulk of his portfolio of apartment buildings to his four surviving children (Donald,
Robert,
Maryanne, and
Elizabeth), submitting tax returns claiming the properties were worth $41.4 million.
Financing During the property boom of the 1980s, Trump acquired numerous properties and by 1990 owed $4 billion to 72 banks. The bank provided Trump with a variety of services including financial instruments designed to shield him from risks and outside scrutiny, and helped connect Trump to wealthy clients (including some from Russia) who were interested in Western real estate. From 2000 on, the Trump Organization held 50% of
TD Trump Deutschland AG, a corporate venture with a German company, planning to build a skyscraper named "Trump Tower Europe" in
Frankfurt,
Berlin or
Stuttgart, but allegedly never paid the full amount of their
€2 million share. At least three lawsuits followed and the company was disestablished in 2005. By mid-2016, it was alleged that the organization, specifically under the leadership of Donald Trump, had a history of not paying for services rendered. Several hundred contractors or workers for the organization have filed lawsuits or
liens saying they were not paid for their work, and others say they had to settle for cents on the dollar. Trump's eldest son,
Donald Jr., was quoted as saying at a 2008 New York real estate conference, "In terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets ... We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia."
James Dodson, a golf magazine writer, said that during a 2014 golf game, he asked Trump's son
Eric how the organization was funding its golf resort acquisitions, to which Trump responded, "Well, we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia." Eric Trump later denied making the statement, although some of the company's financing apparently involves Russian money. The organization has many projects in foreign nations, leading some to point to a
conflict of interest with foreign nations as a result of Donald Trump's position as the president of the United States. It is difficult to determine a net value for the Trump Organization's real estate holdings independently since each individual property may be encumbered by debt. In 2018, a former
Forbes journalist who had worked on the
Forbes list claimed in an op-ed to
The Washington Post that Trump had lied about his wealth to
Forbes to get on the list repeatedly and suggested that
Forbess previous low-end estimates of Trump's net worth were still well above his true net worth. In February 2022, Mazars cited the New York investigation in announcing that it would no longer stand by its financial statements created for the Trump Organization from mid-2010 to mid-2020, and that it would no longer work with the organization.
Trump presidency On January 11, 2017, before starting
his tenure as president of the United States, Trump announced that he and his daughter
Ivanka would fully resign and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric would take executive charge of the various businesses, along with Chief Finance Officer Allen Weisselberg. Trump transferred his companies into a
revocable trust, allowing him to tell the trustees how to run the company and fire them at any time. Trump retained his financial stake in the business, despite having offered during the campaign to put all his assets in a
blind trust should he win the presidency. His attorney at the time, Sheri Dillon, said Trump's assets would be overseen by an ethics officer, and that the Trump Organization would not pursue any new foreign business deals. Under the pre-
inaugural management agreement,
Forbes magazine reported in March 2017:The Trump Organization has curtailed some of its international work, pulling out of deals in
Azerbaijan,
Georgia and
Brazil, while pledging to do no new foreign deals (though it has apparently resurrected an old deal in the
Dominican Republic). Trump's international hotel licensing and management business makes up only $220 million of his estimated $3.5 billion fortune, but it's the most dynamic part of the Trump portfolioand it throws off chunks of cash with virtually no risk. As the Trumps have wound down some international deals, they continue to push forward with new domestic agreements. Eric Trump, in the
Forbes article, discussed the "clear separation of church and state that we maintain" between the business and his father and said that with his father's presidency and related changes "[y]ou could look at it either way" in terms of business prospects. He also said that "he will continue to update his father on the business while he is in the presidency ... 'probably quarterly ... profitability reports and stuff like that'." The article quoted Larry Noble, general counsel of the nonpartisan
Campaign Legal Center and a former chief
ethics officer at the
Federal Election Commission, and President
George W. Bush's former chief ethics lawyer,
Richard Painter, as looking negatively at such multiple planned updates of Trump's businesses per year. In September 2020, it was revealed that Trump's properties had charged the government over $1.1 million since the beginning of his presidency. At the Bedminster club, for example, the
Secret Service rented a three-bedroom cottage for $17,000 per month.
The Washington Post arrived at this total amount after it filed a public-records lawsuit and pieced together receipts and invoices from Trump's businesses. Political contributions were also spent at Trump properties. The total amount paid by the Trump campaign to Trump properties during his presidency is estimated at $10–17 million.
Conflicts of interest detailing over $7.8 million in payments made by foreign governments to Donald Trump during his presidency. Conflict of interest concerns were raised soon after Trump became president when China preliminarily approved 38 trademarks in his name for a variety of branded businesses including hotels, restaurants, spas, escort services, and massage parlors. Trump had applied for the trademarks as a candidate in April 2016. In 2018 and 2019, China granted 23 trademarks to Trump-owned companies and to Ivanka Trump while the U.S. administration and China were engaged in trade negotiations. In January 2024, Democratic members of the
U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Accountability released a report detailing over $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments to Trump-owned businesses. After Republicans took control of the House in the
2022 midterm elections, the committee stopped requesting financial records from Trump's accounting firm,
Mazars, leading the report to assume that additional payments had occurred.
Investigations for fraud and tax evasion in the 1980s In August 2018, the
Manhattan district attorney (DA) was reported to be considering criminal charges against the organization and two of its senior executives for their accounting of then-Trump personal attorney
Michael Cohen's
hush money payment to
Stormy Daniels. In October 2018,
The New York Times published a lengthy exposé concerning Donald Trump's inheritance from his parents, Fred and
Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. It includes detailed analyses of Trump family financial records. The article describes
an alleged tax fraud scheme conducted by Trump and his siblings related to their joint inheritance of their parents's real estate holdings, effectively evading over $500 million in
gift and
estate taxes. The alleged schemes involved siphoning money from the companies to the children throughout their lives and understating the value of transferred properties. In mid-2021,
Mary L. Trump (a primary source for the exposé) elaborated on how the organization used a
shell corporation to siphon money, devaluing Fred Trump's "core business" to $30 million at the time of his death. Michael Cohen testified to Congress in February 2019 that Trump "inflated [the organization's] total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes." Following Cohen's testimony, the
New York State Department of Financial Services issued a
subpoena to
Aon, the organization's longtime insurance broker. By September 2019, the organization was under federal investigation by the
Southern District of New York regarding inflated insurance claims allegations. In January 2020,
D.C. Attorney General,
Karl Racine sued the organization and Trump's inaugural committee on the basis that it had funneled
nonprofit funding intended for the inauguration to the Trumps via event accommodations and a private party costing several hundred thousand dollars at the Trump Hotel. Ivanka Trump testified in December 2020 that she had little to no involvement in the event, which
Mother Jones reported in June 2021 was false. Donald Jr. similarly made key statements in his February 2021 testimony which
Mother Jones reported in April 2021 were false. In November 2021, a
D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed a portion of the lawsuit and dropped the organization as a defendant. Later that month, Racine filed a motion requesting for the organization to be reinstated as a defendant. In February 2022, this request was granted. In May, it was reported that the organization and inaugural committee, which both denied wrongdoing, would pay a $750,000 settlement which will benefit two D.C.-based nonprofits. In August 2020,
New York Attorney General (AG)
Letitia James disclosed in a court filing that her office was conducting a civil investigation of the organization for the asset inflation allegation, asking a court to compel the organization to provide information it had been withholding. The Manhattan DA, which had been seeking Donald Trump's tax returns, suggested in an August 2020 federal court filing that the organization was under investigation for bank and insurance fraud. Eric Trump was deposed on October 5. He reportedly invoked his
Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 500 times. On May 18, 2021, the New York AG's office announced that it was joining the Manhattan DA's office in probing the organization "in a criminal capacity." The Manhattan DA convened a special
grand jury to consider indicting Trump, his company and/or executives. By June 2021, longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg and chief operating officer
Matthew Calamari were under scrutiny of the Manhattan DA investigation.
Criminal and civil charges On July 1, 2021, the Manhattan district attorney criminally charged the Trump Organization with a "15 year 'scheme to defraud' the government", conspiracy, and falsifying business records. Prosecutors filed 10 charges against the organization and its Trump Payroll Corporation entity, and
15 felony counts against Weisselberg, including grand larceny and offering a false instrument for filing. Prosecutors allege that Weisselberg received about $1.76 million in undeclared
indirect compensation in the form of free rent and utilities, car leases for himself and his wife, and school tuition for his grandchildren. Both the organization and Weisselberg pleaded
not guilty. On July 8, the Trump Organization removed Weisselberg as director of the company running
Trump International Golf Links, Scotland; on July 9, the company removed him as director of 40 subsidiaries registered in Florida. It was later reported that Weisselberg had invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 500 times. By November 22, prosecutors were scrutinizing several of the organization's properties for which, between 2011 and 2015, far higher values were presented to potential lenders than were reported to tax officials. In the most extreme case, in 2012, the
40 Wall Street building was cited as being worth $527 million to the former, but only $16.7 million to the latter. Michael Cohen subsequently stated that prosecutors could "indict Donald Trump tomorrow if they really wanted, and be successful". On December 1, the New York AG subpoenaed Trump in the civil case, with plans to depose him on January 7, 2022. Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. were issued subpoenas in the matter on the same day. By mid-December 2021, an accountant for Trump had testified before the grand jury. Prosecutors were reportedly examining whether the organization provided its outside accountants, Mazars USA, with cherry-picked information with which to prepare favorable financial statements to present to prospective lenders. Mazars provided disclaimers with its financial statements for the organization, indicating that the firm had not audited, reviewed, or given any assurances about them, and noting that "Donald J. Trump is responsible for the preparation and fair presentation of the financial statement in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America." In December 2021, Trump's lawyer
Alina Habba filed a lawsuit against New York AG Letitia James, alleging that the investigation of the former president was "guided solely by political animus and a desire to harass, intimidate, and retaliate against a private citizen who she views as a political opponent" and that his
civil rights were being violated. A federal judge dismissed the suit in May 2022. On January 3, 2022, James and a lawyer for the organization filed a court document noting that Donald Trump and his two eldest children had moved to block their subpoenas on the premise that the AG was attempting to sidestep due process to gather evidence against them in the related criminal case. On January 10, Habba filed a motion seeking a
stay of proceedings to allow an
injunction against James. On February 17, a judge rejected an argument by a Trump attorney that the former president belongs to a
protected class and ordered the Trumps to testify; the
First Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of New York State upheld this ruling on May 26. From late April to late June, Trump was held in
civil contempt for failing to provide subpoenaed documents. Subsequently, real-estate firm
Cushman & Wakefield, which conducted appraisals for several Trump Organization properties (before cutting ties by January 2021), was held in contempt for failing to meet a deadline for subpoenaed documents. After weeks of internal debate within the district attorney's office about the strength of the evidence against Trump, two top prosecutors in the case resigned in February 2022 after new district attorney
Alvin Bragg said he was not prepared to authorize an indictment of Trump personally. One of the prosecutors who resigned,
Mark Pomerantz, stated in his resignation letter that Trump was "guilty of numerous felony violations" and that he was confident it could be proven in court. Bragg's spokeswoman later said the investigation was continuing. The criminal trial against the Trump Organization began on October 24. On December 6, 2022, a New York jury convicted the Trump Organization on all 17 of its tax fraud charges. One entity, The Trump Corporation, was convicted of nine criminal charges, while its other entity, The Trump Payroll Corporation, was convicted of eight criminal charges as well. The suit sought $250 million in penalties and future restrictions on Trump family business activities in New York State. In advance of filing the suit, Trump sat for a deposition during which he invoked his
Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 440 times. On November 3, the New York judge overseeing the lawsuit approved James's request for an independent monitor to prevent future fraud by the organization, specifically requiring the judge's approval before any assets were sold or transferred. James found that days before her suit was filed, Trump attorneys had created a new Delaware corporation, dubbed Trump Organization II, which she was concerned could be used to protect Trump's assets from a financial judgment. The judge presiding over the civil suit ruled in September 2023 that Trump, his adult sons, and the Trump Organization had repeatedly committed fraud and ordered their New York business certificates canceled and their business entities sent into receivership for dissolution. In February 2024, the judge ordered Trump to pay a penalty of more than $350 million plus interest, for a total of more than $450 million, and barred him from heading any New York company for three years. Trump said he would appeal the verdict. His sons Donald Jr. and Eric were ordered to pay more $4 million each and barred from serving as officers or directors of any New York firm for two years. The judge also ordered the company to be overseen by the monitor appointed by the court in 2023 and an independent director of compliance, and said that any "restructuring and potential dissolution" would be the decision of the monitor. In March 2024, the New York Appeals would reduce the required payment to $175 million and set a 10-day deadline, with Trump agreeing to make the payment within the deadline. Trump posted the bond within the required deadline.
IRS audit In 2024,
the New York Times and
ProPublica reported that the
Internal Revenue Service investigated whether Trump had twice written off losses of his
Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) through construction cost overruns, lagging sales, and selling residential units below value. In his 2008 tax return, he declared the property to be worthless. The two publications calculated thatof the total deduction of $697 million Trump claimed that yearup to $651 million were based on the property's worthlessness. In 2010, he passed ownership of the property from one of his business entities to another one and claimed another $168 million for the next 10 years. The publications, "in consultation with tax experts, calculated that the revision sought by the IRS would create a new tax bill of more than $100 million, plus interest and potential penalties".
"Corporate death penalty" In September 2023,
Arthur Engoron, the judge presiding over the civil suit, ruled that Trump, his adult sons and the organization repeatedly committed fraud and ordered their New York business certificates canceled and their business entities sent into receivership for dissolution in what has been described by observers as a "
corporate death penalty". == Real estate ==