The making of Donald Trump

Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Johnston first met Donald Trump in 1988 as he looked into how casinos were managed and regulated. He became curious about the mogul's operations and blustery personality and has been on the case ever since, amassing an enormous archive of material, which he carefully mines in this steely inquiry. Determined to present a more complete and accurate account of the Republican nominee for president and his life than the story Trump has polished and promoted with such exceptional skill and determination, Johnston, who maintains a crisply matter-of-fact approach throughout this scrupulously detailed and documented chronicle, focuses on the business dealings Trump heralds as his qualifications for the presidency. Trump came by his appetite for real estate naturally, Johnston explains, following the path set by his German immigrant, rogue entrepreneur grandfather and apprenticing to his stern builder and landlord father, who was investigated for postwar profiteering by diverting housing subsidies and for racist rental practices immortalized in a protest song, Old Man Trump, written by one outraged tenant, the now-legendary Woody Guthrie. Trump learned as much about manipulating the press as about pushing legal limits from his father, then upped the ante by securing a new mentor after his father's death, attorney Roy Cohn, notorious for his part in Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist witch hunts. Johnston makes it clear that real estate in New York City was a dirty business with the Mob involved in everything from selling concrete to infiltrating labor unions as he recounts the tale of Trump Tower and Trump's gaming the system, beginning with his hiring of illegal Polish immigrants who were so badly treated they sued in what is but one of nearly 3,500 lawsuits launched against Trump to protest swindles crude and shrewd that have wreaked havoc on many lives. Johnston identifies criminals Trump has associated with and meticulously explicates his massive debts and multiple bankruptcies and bailouts, tax-evasion tactics, luxury-development scams, and the federal criminal investigations that have targeted him. By exposing what he argues is Trump's strategic flouting of the law, as well as his belief in revenge as a guiding principle and his strategy of sowing doubt and threatening litigation, Johnston hopes that his book will prompt readers to carefully evaluate the prospect of a Trump presidency. --Seaman, Donna Copyright 2016 Booklist