Con men and con women
by Tom Sullivan
Losing other people’s money to sustain his inflated self-image as a business genius is a skill Donald Trump perfected over a lifetime. He fooled New York’s elite. He fooled New York media. He fooled tens of millions of television viewers. He fooled 63 million voters into believing his is some kind of rags-to-riches success story. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes believes he might be the most successful con man of all time. Trump found you can live the high life fooling a lot of people all the time.
The New York Times this week exposed the lie that did not fool half the country in November 2016. Between 1985 and 1994, Trump lost $1.17 billion. Some of that was only on paper, but much of it was other people’s money. Only suckers take risks with their own. (Or pay taxes.) Even so, Trump lost boatloads of his own. He even lost his boat. And the Trump Shuttle. And his investment in the Grand Hyatt.
“The Art of the Deal,” Trump’s best-selling book of business advice, is itself a con. Tony Schwartz wrote the book for Trump. He tweeted Wednesday, “Given the Times report on Trump’s staggering losses, I’d be fine if Random House simply took the book out of print. Or recategorized it as fiction.”
When Trump agreed to be roasted on Comedy Central in 2011, Paul Waldman reminds readers, he allowed comedians to poke fun at “his hair, his racism and even the idea that he lusted after his own daughter.” Making fun of his bankruptcies or suggesting he was not as rich as he claimed were verboten.
Then what does all this — the yacht, the bronze tower, the casinos — really mean to you?
Props for the show.
And what is the show?
The show is “Trump” and it is sold-out performances everywhere.
— Donald J. Trump, 1990 interview with Playboy magazine
Waldman explains Trump’s con:
Trump’s own personal greed and his sense that the rules don’t apply to him have never been in question. But why would he be so threatened by people learning that he isn’t as wealthy as he claims? Part of it is ego, of course; he plainly equates money with one’s value as a human being. But it’s also because he built his career on the belief that if he could convince people he’s impossibly rich, he’d become impossibly rich and remain so.
Fake it until you make it. Even if you start out rich, as Trump did. Even if daddy has to keep bailing out your failures to maintain the illusion, as Fred Trump did.
Running concurrently with revelations about Trump’s massive losses, likely tax fraud, billionaire facade, and worse is the story of Anna Sorokin, 28, a.k.a. Anna Delvey. Originally from Germany, the “SoHo grifter” conned socialites and banks across Manhattan into believing she was a German heiress bursting with cash and planning a contemporary visual arts center.
She handed out $100 tips. She conned her way into an extended stay at a luxury hotel. She conned a friend into paying $62,000 for a trip to Morocco. She passed bad checks. She rented a private jet with a forged wire transfer from Deutsche Bank. She attempted to secure a $22 million loan using forged financial records purporting to show multimillion-dollar foreign accounts. That loan never went through, but another bank lent her $100,000 she never repaid.
Living as a mini-Trump, Sorokin conned the same New York social scene as Trump. Not having had Fred Trump’s tutelage, she just was not as skilled at it nor as heavily fortified by attorneys.
A jury convicted “Delvey” in April of three counts of grand larceny, attempted grand larceny, and misdemeanor theft of services. Even at trial, her fashion choices were the stuff of gossip columns. A wardrobe issue delayed her appearance in court. Sorokin was employing a courtroom stylist and still trying to keep up the fiction:
Her attorney, Todd Spodek, insisted Sorokin planned to settle her six-figure debts and was merely “buying time.” He portrayed her as an ambitious entrepreneur who had merely gotten in over her head but had no criminal intent.
Fake it until you make it. Sorokin’s problem is she does not actually have the oil baron father she claimed to bankroll her lifestyle and backstop her failures.
Donald Trump started out better-capitalized. As for no criminal intent? That is for New York courts to decide if Trump’s cons ever get that far.
Sorokin’s sentencing is today. She faces up to 15 years in prison.