Left: Equal housing marchers during the Civil Rights era. Right: Donald Trump in 1975, the year he settled charges of racism without admitting guilt, which evidence in this story exposes.
The FBI just proved that Donald Trump and the Trump Organization actively sought to keep African-Americans out of their residential apartment complexes by releasing a 389-page document dump this week, confirming earlier reports that President’s family business practiced blatant housing discrimination, based on public record documents discovered by the Democratic Coalition.
“He was named personally on the federal complaint. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what's in someone's heart if their actions are rotten,” said Scott Dworkin, Senior Advisor to the Democratic Coalition who runs the #TrumpLeaks operation.
#TrumpLeaks unearthed exclusive DOJ documents in late October, which lead to this investigative report in October.
The FBI’s data factually corroborates the Democratic Coalition’s documents, and our earlier reporting with yesterday’s document dump, but still, Dworkin wasn’t in a mood to celebrate the FBI’s unexpected revelations.
“I wish they had released this earlier,” said the Democratic Coalition’s lead researcher, “we had a good deal of this information, but the sourcing is obviously much tighter and more reliable now that the FBI has put it out themselves. But, now he's got the nuclear codes and control over taxpayer dollars.
“We need to focus very hard on wresting control away from him [Trump] by winning elections in 2018 and 2020.”
President Donald J. Trump settled a massive housing discrimination case with the federal government in 1975 without ever admitting guilt.
But it's now clear that he was guilty as sin.
The files detail dozens of interviews with Trump tenants, management, and employees.
The Trump Organization had 9,050 apartment units covered under the settlement agreement with the federal government, which housed only 399 minority residents across 35 covered properties, or only 4.4% of Fred and Donald Trump’s New York City rental real estate empire.
For years, Trump has claimed that he never discriminated against African-Americans, which proved to be a lie based upon leaked Justice Department documents from 1977, published before last year's election.
The public record document proves the Trump Organization and principals Fred and Donald Trump’s buildings schemed to ignore the Fair Housing Act of 1968, failed miserably and landed the duo court for two years starting in 1973.
Here's just a sample of the new proof:
FBI records indicate a Trump employee admitted to participating in a housing discrimination scheme. He was a doorman.
POLITICO reports that another one of the documents contained testimony by a doorman who alleged that a Trump building Supervisor made him assist in the process of racially purifying their apartments, in violation of the Fair Housing Act:
"[He] told me that if a black person came to 2650 Ocean Parkway and inquired about an apartment for rent, and he, that is [redacted] was not there at the time, that I should tell him that the rent was twice as much as it really was, in order that he could not afford the apartment." Donald Trump denied any racial discrimination, but said his managers tried to weed out certain kinds of tenants. “What we didn’t do was rent to welfare cases, white or black," Trump wrote in a 1987 book.
Additionally, POLITICO noted that in these records, "most of those interviewed said they were not aware of any discrimination. However, some of the records recount the stories of black rental applicants who said they were told no apartments were available, while whites sent to check on the same apartments were offered leases."
“It's important for the American people to have clarity on who their president is and what he does,” the Democratic Coalition’s Scott Dworkin concluded.
“From Trump U to unpaid contractors and a series of bankruptcies designed to leave investors and taxpayers in the lurch while enriching himself, Trump has proven time and again that he can exploit people and get away with it.”
This FBI’s latest document release is probably the last thing Donald Trump wanted to learn about, seeing as there are multiple ongoing investigations into his inner circle over their potentially treasonous communications with Russian officials.
But these files tell an important story: this is how Donald Trump achieved what he calls "business success."
It was actually just blatant racism.
Read all about Trump’s racist housing practices here: