The Big Cheat

August 23, 2021
Pulitzer winner Johnston (It’s Even Worse Than You Think) delivers a damning portrait of how “Donald Trump, his extended family, and his cronies... used his presidency to get richer, to set up lucrative future opportunities, and to escape their own financial quagmires.” Alleging that Trump’s modus operandi is to “promise the moon, the sky, and the stars, and then deliver rocks and sand, if that,” Johnston documents the stiffing of contractors and business partners; the suspicious awarding of tax breaks, building permits, and other “goodies” to Trump Organization development projects in the Dominican Republic and India; and the surreptitious overcharging of supporters who thought they were making one-time contributions to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Most of the details are well-known to followers of the news, but Johnston weaves them into a cogent account of endemic corruption within the Trump Organization and the Trump administration, and he unearths a handful of new and telling episodes, including the story of how Trump got thrown out of New York City mayor Abe Beame’s office in 1977 for physically threatening Beame over the Commodore Hotel project. The result is a devastating roundup of malfeasance. Agent: Alice Martell, the Martell Agency.

October 1, 2021
Johnston, a Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter, has been following Donald Trump's financial affairs since 1988, when he covered the casino industry for the Philadelphia Inquirer, documenting Trump's "incompetence, ignorance, and dishonesty." This book, the third in a trio (following It's Even Worse Than You Think, 2018) that covers Trump's presidential years, focuses on how Trump enriched himself, his family, and his friends to the tune of more than a billion dollars while fleecing the government and his supporters. One of the best things about this investigation is the way Johnston presents his material in an easily understandable manner. The ""emoluments clause"" of the Constitution could make eyes glaze over, but Johnston explains it clearly, shows its importance, and details how the Trump family abused it for their own purposes and why we should care. Other topics are covered similarly--Russian connections, tax scams, the border wall as a lucrative opportunity, and many more. Also refreshing are the book's closing chapters. Rather than simply tsk-tsking about Trump's abuses, Johnston offers common-sense solutions for bringing transparency and integrity back to politics and government.

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Starred review from September 1, 2021
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and longtime Trump-watcher delivers enough charges to fuel a few hundred indictments. Johnston opens with a scenario of desperation: In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, great numbers of low-income, poorly informed Americans longed for a savior who "would relieve their financial crisis." What they got was a "master con artist" who would "cheat them out of what they had, all the while telling them that he was really their friend and helper." Step 1: Destroy the notion of objective truth. Step 2: Send up a smokescreen of lies. Step 3: Loot the people's treasury, self-dealing while leaving scraps for other financial predators. Johnston assembles a case that's full of news and startling incidents. In one, a 29-year-old Trump assaults outgoing New York Mayor Abe Beame to strong-arm a sweetheart deal; though police officers escorted him from Beame's office, he got what he demanded. The behavioral pattern with the most staying power is not violence, however, but cheating: overstating assets, engaging in phony accounting, not paying taxes. With the power of the presidency, Trump--who, Johnston reminds us, is the only president past or present at the center of a felony investigation--opened the nation's coffers to his fellow grifters, engaging in "the kind of borrowing that made Trump infamous--money you borrow but never pay back in full and perhaps not at all." Those fellow grifters are legion, but at the top of the list are daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as former transportation secretary Elaine Chao, poster children "who illustrate the need for strict ethics training and for equally strict enforcement of laws against misusing public office." Trump's sole accomplishment, by Johnston's account, was the failed coup of Jan. 6, 2021, because it "testifies to his incompetence" while shining a light on would-be dictators waiting in the wings. True believers won't be swayed, but those inclined to despise Trump and Trumpism will find ample reinforcement.

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