DAVID CAY JOHNSTON’S TAKE ON DONALD TRUMP
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
FEBRUARY 10, 2019


THESE VIDEOS AND WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE ARE OF A VERY INTERESTING MAN, CLEARLY INTELLIGENT, BUT ECCENTRIC, EXPOUNDING ON THE SUBJECT OF DONALD J TRUMP. WHEN I USE THE TERM ECCENTRIC, I DON’T MEAN “INSANE” OR OTHERWISE INCOMPETENT, BUT NOT CUT FROM THE ORDINARY CLOTH, EITHER – INTERESTING AND QUIRKY. LISTEN TO THE VIDEOS, AND SEE WHAT YOU THINK OF HIM.

HERE ARE THREE FASCINATING VIDEO CRITIQUES OF DONALD TRUMP AND HIS ACTIONS, AND ONE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE THAT HAS SOME QUESTIONABLE STATEMENTS ABOUT HIS PRIMARY CRITIC HERE, HIS UNOFFICIAL BIOGRAPHER DAVID CAY JOHNSTON. JOHNSTON, HOWEVER, SPEAKS AND MAKES HIS ARGUMENTS VERY WELL, AND BESIDES, HE HAS A PULITZER PRIZE FOR BEAT REPORTING, AND HAS WRITTEN FOR THREE MAJOR NEWS OUTLETS. JOHNSTON MADE A FACTUAL ERROR WHICH WAS PUBLICIZED DURING HIS CAREER, AND HAS BEEN CRITICIZED FOR BEING EGOTISTICAL. HOWEVER, HIS VIDEOS ARE CONVINCING AND DIG DEEPLY INTO TRUMP’S BACKGROUND. I ENJOYED THESE, AND I HOPE YOU WILL, TOO.


THIS FIRST FROM YOUTUBE IS A SUMMARY OF MANY OF THE TRUMP/RUSSIA BUSINESS TIES.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqesw5kwEow
Watch ZEMBLA: The dubious friends of Donald Trump part 3: The billion dollar fraud.

ZEMBLA - Onderzoeksjournalistiek
Published on Sep 27, 2017

Will Donald Trump go down due to his dubious ties to the former Soviet Union? The president seems to be getting in deeper and deeper. Special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who is investigating if Trump colluded with Russia in order to win the elections, is also digging into Trump's past as a business man. In that past, one of Donald Trump's business partners plays a crucial role, Felix Sater. A convicted felon who has ties with the Russian mafia. Last May, Zembla disclosed how an American real estate company, run by Sater, used Dutch mailbox companies within a network, which has been suspected of laundering money. Allegedly $1.5 million dollars had been diverted. Donald Trump developed hotels and apartment complexes with this suspicious company.

In the last few months ZEMBLA received indications of a greater fraud. A billion dollar fraud. And here Sater, Trump's questionable business partner, shows up, as well. The money trail leads to Kazakhstan, to real estate projects in New York and again to the Netherlands. ZEMBLA investigates: How compromising is this case for the current president of America?


DAVID CAY JOHNSTON SPEECH ON TRUMP --
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azck1jY79cA
David Cay Johnston 'It’s Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America'

Town Hall Seattle
Streamed live on Jan 29, 2018

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Cay Johnston may know Donald Trump better than any other working journalist, having first profiled the forty-fifth president in 1988 and tracked him ever since. He was the first to write about a potential Trump presidency when Trump announced his campaign in June 2015, and we turn to him now for a comprehensive examination of the first one hundred days of Donald Trump’s presidency in his book 'It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America'. He provides unique insight about the actions the new administration is quietly approving without drawing the attention of the Washington press corps, and examines phenomena the mainstream press stopped covering years ago. Join Johnston for a deep exposition of the workings of federal government agencies as they affect the lives of all Americans: from our wallets, to our health care, to our safety.

David Cay Johnston is a journalist, author, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. He has chronicled Donald Trump’s conduct in his books: Temples of Chance and the New York Times bestseller The Making of Donald Trump. He has been called “One of America’s most important journalists” by The Washington Monthly, and he has acted as an uncredited source of documents and insight for major campaign reports by The Washington Post, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and network television.

Presented by Town Hall Seattle as part of the Civics series.
Category
Nonprofits & Activism


DAVID CAY JOHNSTON INTERVIEW ON TRUMP -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8bAHb4yVko
The Secrets Donald Trump Doesn't Want You to Know About: Business, Finance, Marketing 52:51

The Film Archives
Published on Oct 11, 2017

David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948) is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting. More on the book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/161...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_C...

The Making of Donald Trump is a 2016 biography of the American businessman, property developer and politician Donald Trump by the American investigative journalist David Cay Johnston. It was published by Melville House Publishing.

Johnston first met Trump as a reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer in June 1988 and likened him to P. T. Barnum. He subsequently reported on Trump for almost 30 years, and wrote the book in 27 days. In an interview with The New York Times Johnston said that Trump had "...seriously damaged his brand" with his presidential campaign and would "follow him for the rest of his life". Johnston also felt that Trump was "masterful at understanding the conventions of journalism" and "remarkably agile at doing as he chooses and getting away with it."

The book entered the New York Times hardcover nonfiction list in fifteenth position and spent four weeks there.

The book consists of 24 chapters, with an introduction and an epilogue. The book details Trump's family history, personal biography and an account of his business career and marriages.

David M. Shribman, writing for The Boston Globe, felt that the book was "a chronicle of mobsters and mistresses, shady construction deals and financial shenanigans, monumental projects and miserable (and possibly illegal) business practices" and that "Much of this slender volume's contents are already part of the public record; some of it is new". Shribman noted that the book focuses on Trump's personal and business life rather than his political career and that "More than a dozen Republican candidates and the entire Democratic Party have made the very same argument Johnston puts forward here. It is an important critique, yet an ignored one. Trump may, and probably does, have all these flaws. He also possesses perhaps the most important, and in some quarters surely the most appealing, message in this year of fear and discontent. The book that explains that is the one worth writing, and waiting for."

The book was reviewed by Michael Russell for the Herald Scotland who wrote that the "24 short chapters of the very readable book contain substantial detail regarding Trump's activities since that time. They also dig into his earlier years and some of his family background. As to the truth of these claims, readers will need to make up their own minds." Russell felt that Johnston "sometimes comes across as being almost as self-satisfied and assertive as Trump" but concluded that "Inauguration, unlike baptism, does not wash away sins nor confer wisdom. If even a 10th of David Cay Johnston’s stories are true, then Trump is morally, intellectually, culturally, economically, legally and politically unfit for office of any sort. No wonder so much of the world is shaking its head but also holding its breath."

David J. Lynch reviewed the book for The Financial Times and wrote that "Johnston has done voters a service with this unblinking portrait. He makes a compelling case that Trump has the attributes of both "dictator" and "deceiver" and would be a disaster in the Oval Office. ...Yet, ultimately this is a dispiriting read. If Johnston's rendering of Trump is at all accurate, it is not just the New York businessman who deserves rebuke. So too does an entire American political system that has put him within reach of the White House despite his manifest flaws." Lynch was also critical of Johnston's prose style, feeling that "This slim 210-page volume feels a bit rushed: the transitions can be choppy and, like his subject, Johnston has a healthy regard for his own abilities. ...Tip: when you are taking down one of the world’s great narcissists, go easy on self-promotion" but that it "is a minor flaw in a work that delivers so much insight".


JOHNSTON’S LIFE AND STUDIES – I SUGGEST THAT YOU READ THIS WHOLE WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE CLOSELY, ESPECIALLY THE AREA UNDER THE HEADING “REPORTING,” BECAUSE IT DOES GIVE SOME CRITIQUES OF HIS WORK THAT IN TWO CASES AT LEAST, MIGHT BE DEALING WITH A MATTER OF HIS PERSONAL HONESTY. ONE SOURCE STATED THAT JOHNSTON MAY BE A BIT OF A NARCISSIST, HIMSELF, WHO IS POSSIBLY DOING TOO MUCH “SELF-PROMOTION.” FINALLY, JOHNSTON’S EDUCATION IS ECCENTRIC AT BEST. THIS IS PROOF THAT A PERSON CAN TAKE A COURSE HERE AND ANOTHER THERE OVER A PERIOD OF YEARS AND ACCUMULATE ENOUGH HOURS TO PULL TOGETHER A DIPLOMA. HOWEVER, JOHNSTON HAS HAD A GREAT DEAL MORE PRAISE THAN NEGATIVE REPORTS. WHAT HE HAS DONE RE HIS SCHOOLING IS ESSENTIALLY WHAT ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS SAID TO HAVE DONE. LINCOLN “READ THE LAW” AND THEN TOOK THE STATE LAW EXAM, PASSING IT.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cay_Johnston
David Cay Johnston
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Cay Boyle Johnston (born December 24, 1948)[1] is an American investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

From 2009 to 2016 he was a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer who taught the tax, property, and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and the Whitman School of Management.[citation needed] From July 2011 until September 2012 he was a columnist for Reuters, writing, and producing video commentaries, on worldwide issues of tax, accounting, economics, public finance and business. Johnston is the board president of Investigative Reporters and Editors.[2] He has also written for Al Jazeera English and America in recent years.

Johnston at the 2016 Texas Book Festival
Born December 24, 1948 (age 70)
San Francisco, California, U.S.

Education San Francisco State University
Michigan State University
University of Chicago
Occupation Journalist, author
Known for investigative reporting, reporting on tax issues

Notable work
Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else
Spouse(s) Jennifer Leonard
Awards Pulitzer Prize
Website davidcayjohnston.com

Reporting

Johnston covered "student radicals, black politics and development" at the San Jose Mercury News from 1968 to 1973.[3] Although he "earned enough credits for at least one master’s degree," his formal educational credentials are limited to a "night high school diploma" as he "skipped most general education requirements in favor of upper division and graduate study at seven schools," including San Francisco State University (1972), the University of Chicago (where he studied under a five-month fellowship in 1973) and Michigan State University (1973-1975).[4][3] At Michigan State, he wrote an internal textbook (A Guide to Public Records) for the university's journalism department.[4] From 1973 to 1976, he was an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press in its Lansing bureau. In 1976, he joined the Los Angeles Times, where he remained until 1988. Johnston subsequently worked as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 to 1995. He joined The New York Times in February 1995.

As a reporter Johnston investigated Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) political spying and other abuses, the hotelier Barron Hilton, misuse of charitable funds at United Way, news manipulation at WJIM-TV in Lansing, Michigan, and Donald Trump's financial dealings. In 1983, Johnston's reporting of newer information regarding a problematic murder investigation helped a man who had been previously tried four times to win an acquittal during his fifth trial, and was judged "the best news story of the year by the California-Nevada editors of United Press International."[5]

From February 1995 to April 2008, he was the tax reporter with The New York Times. For the next three years, until joining Reuters, he wrote "Johnston's Take", a column on tax policy for the nonprofit journal Tax Notes and its sister website tax.com, published by Tax Analysts.[6] In 2009 he briefly wrote, "By The Numbers," a column for The Nation.[7]

Johnston received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms. "Johnston described how corporations were paying less in taxes, even as individuals were paying more, with even well-known companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Compaq Computer, and United Parcel Service (UPS) engaging in "what the courts called shams." A court found that Merrill Lynch saved AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) $180 million in "sham" money transfers among foreign companies. However, the IRS is, since 1999, more likely to audit the poor than the rich, Johnston reported.[8]

In 2001 Johnston investigated the claim that estate taxes, which Republicans call "death taxes," were so high that farm families were being forced to sell their family farms in order to pay the taxes. This claim was presented to prove the need to eliminate the inheritance tax. Johnston challenged those who made that claim, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, to cite an example of a farm that was lost because of estate taxes, and they were unable to do so. Economists told Johnston that it was a myth. An IRS analysis of 1999 returns found that almost no working farmers owe estate taxes. Estate taxes are not assessed on the first $1.35 million net worth, and then rise from 43 to 55 percent above $3 million. Additionally, most wealthy people use legal maneuvers to reduce their estate taxes to 25 percent (or even as little as zero) for the largest estates.[9]

He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2003 "for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage." He was also a finalist in 2000 "for his lucid coverage of problems resulting from the reorganization of the Internal Revenue Service."

Johnston speaking at the San Francisco Tax Day March, April 2017

Like columnist Steven Pearlstein, Johnston has won praise for his writing even though he has no degree in economics. Johnston studied economics at the University of Chicago graduate school and six other colleges, earning the equivalent of six years of college credits but no awarded degree, because he took upper level and graduate level courses almost exclusively, and did not remain at any one school long enough.[10]

Johnston has been critical of news coverage of the 2008 $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. In a letter to American journalist and blogger Jim Romenesko, Johnston wrote, "In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is."[11] Johnston has been cited favorably by Glenn Greenwald[12] as well as other bailout critics.[13] On September 26, 2008, Johnston said: "If you look around, you'll notice that banks are still making ordinary loans to ordinary businesses. Your mailbox is still full of proposals to sell you credit cards and extend you debt. The Internet still has ads for these very toxic mortgages that are at the heart of this. They're being advertised all over the Internet....And my point is not to argue that there is or is not a crisis, but that journalists need to begin not by questioning around the edges but by going to the core question. Is this the least expensive way to do this? Are there market solutions that might be applied?"[14]

In 2011, in his debut article for Reuters, Johnson mistook a positive number for a negative one in News Corp's annual report, and as a result, his article said that News Corp had received a large tax refund, when in reality, it had paid taxes. This error led to a retraction of the article.[15]

In late-2016 Johnston founded DCReport, an online journal covering the president's administration and congress[16]

On March 14, 2017, Johnston released a portion of Donald Trump's 2005 1040 tax form which, he states, he received anonymously in the mail.[17]

Works

Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy. Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, is about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller[18] on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.

Johnston's first book, the 1992 Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how the junk-bond kings usurped mob control of the casino industry in the 1980s. The book discusses corruption in the industry and the role of the federal and state governments in that corruption.

In 2014 Cay Johnston released Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality. Cay Johnston shows most Americans, in inflation-adjusted terms, are now back to the average income of 1966. Post-recession (from 2009 to 2011) the top one percent of households took in 121 percent of the income gains while the bottom 99 percent saw their incomes fall.

In 2016, Johnston released The Making of Donald Trump, a journalistic account of the rise of businessperson-turned-presidential candidate Donald Trump, with Melville House Publishing.[19] At the time he wrote the book, Johnston had known Trump for 28 years. The book soon became a New York Times bestseller.[20]

His latest book, published in 2018, is It's Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration is Doing to America, an investigative piece that details actions taken by Trump and his appointees at the departmental level, and how these actions affect Americans' rights and civil protections.[21]

Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business (1992) ISBN 978-0-385-41920-8

Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else (2003) ISBN 1-59184-019-8

Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill (2007) ISBN 978-1-59184-191-3

The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind (2012) ISBN 978-1-591-84358-0 [22]

Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality (2014)

The Making of Donald Trump (August 2016) ISBN 978-1612196329

Johnston, David Cay (January 2018). It's Even Worse Than You Think; What the Trump Administration is Doing to America (Hardcover ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781501174162.

Personal life

Johnston was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gretchen E. and Leslie Jules Johnston, a chef.[23] Johnston is married to Jennifer Leonard.[24] They live in Brighton, New York, a suburb of Rochester. They have eight children and five grandchildren.

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