Free Republic

Here's the story. Not long after 9/11, the World Trade Center Business Recovery Grant program was established to help small businesses recover and rebuild. The program disbursed hundreds of millions of dollars through a New York state development corporation in the years following the attacks... ...the New York Daily News ran an investigative piece about how the program had awarded grants to companies and subsidiaries that hardly seemed like "small businesses." Among them were Dell, Morgan Stanley, and, yes, Donald Trump... ...as Trump said immediately following 9/11, none of his properties were directly damaged by the attack on the World...

WASHINGTON -- Donald Trump knew a man he named as a senior business adviser in 2010 had been convicted in a major Mafia-linked stock fraud scheme, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records. Trump had worked with Felix Sater previously during the man's stint as an executive at Bayrock Group LLC, a real estate development firm that partnered with Trump on numerous projects after renting office space from the Trump Organization. But Sater's past was not widely known at the time because he was working as a government cooperator on mob cases and the judge overseeing...

With lawsuits pending and shady partners, Trump's business empire could not withstand the scrutiny of a presidential campaign, and even his kids might have been muddied. Editor's Note, 8/10/15: Four years ago, Wayne Barett reported shady business deals ahead of Trump's flirtation with a White House run. After first exposing Trump’s ties to organized crime in his 1992 book, Barrett looked into his most recent business dealings and discovered the following: One associate who was an "unindicted co-conspirator" in a massive 2000 stock swindle-and escaped prison only by helping to convict 19 others, including six members of New York crime...