Does Donald Trump Have Mob Connections

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston was published in Politico in May detailing how the GOP nominee Donald Trump David Cay Johnston has a “pattern of dealings with Mafia characters.”

The past Atlantic City journalist also wrote a book, “Temples of Chance,” claiming that through the years he found “multiple threads” which connect Trump to organized corruption.

The five most incriminating claims found in the Politico article:

1. Trump often used “mobbed-up” cement. According to Johnson, Trump of bought overpriced cement from a business dominated by mafia bosses “Fat Tony” Salerno and Paul Castellano. The cement used to put up Trump Tower was supposedly built with materials that Trump bought for elevated rates from the duo as he swapped cash for union assistance.

2. Mob ties. After over a quarter-century of covering Trump, Johnson is convinced the real estate mogul has bonds with the mafia. “Some of Trump’s associations have been pursued and verified in court; some haven’t. Some of those connections stayed in place until recently, although Trump has alleged a “faulty memory.”

3. Links to Gambinos. A Gambino family connection, John Cody, supposedly bought three Trump Tower units with a $3 million mortgage made available by Trump. The billionaire did not require Cody to complete a mortgage application or detail the standard financials. Cody, who managed the concrete trucks while Trump Tower was being erected, stayed at the condos and invested half-a-million. When Cody was ultimately sentenced for racketeering and went to prison, he was stripped of union control.

4. Non-union employees underpaid. According to the article, Trump hired a wrecking crew to remove a department store to make room for Trump Tower. He hired over 200 non-union workers, mostly unauthorized immigrants and paid them approximately $5 an hour with no extras. The Polish immigrants worked lengthy days, were not equipped with the proper gear and had to sleep at the building site.

5. Trump shady. Johnson believes Trump to be the most underhanded candidate ever. “No other candidate this year has anywhere near Trump’s record of friendly and business dealings with mobsters and swindlers,” Johnston wrote. Professor Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, says the nearest historical precedent would be President Warren Harding and the Teapot Dome Scandal; a scandal in which the interior secretary went to the penitentiary.

But even that has an important difference: Hardin’s connections were crooked but otherwise genuine businessmen — not mobsters and drug dealers.