I Know The Trump Family From Avenue Z-- They Were The Neighborhood Con Artists

The simplest way to see the Trump campaign is to never lose sight of that fact that he has always been and will always be a scam artist or, as most of his opponents in the Republican primary called him, a con man. The new flap over his immigration policy is just another example of that. After all the pain and anguish and turmoil he cause with his hateful rhetoric, he is now tap-dancing away from his round-up and deportation squads that so animated the racists and xenophobes on the GOP's fringes-- and beyond-- to try to reposition his deportation plan as one that will simply distinguish "bad" undocumented immigrants from others; in other words, Obama's system. On Fox with O'Reilly he pretty much admitted that the U.S. doesn't have open borders and that Obama is enforcing the law-- exploding the biggest premise of his own candidacy and putting the lie to the ad his campaign is running now. Yes, the guy is a two-bit hustler who's hustling two groups of Americans: racists and the intellectually handicapped. Are you a Trumpist? Which group do you fall into?

Some of the unfinished office space in Trumpanzee Tower that the Trumpanzee campaign had been paying $35,000 a month for until May. The campaign paid nearly $170,000 for its Trumpanzee Tower space in July

The newest scam uncovered by the media shows Señor Trumpanzee using campaign contributions to pay himself premium $120/square foot office space at Trumpanzee Tower when he hasn't been able to find a tenant to rent the same space for $90/square foot. If he is eager to soak and cheat his supporters, what do you think he has in mind for the a country stupid enough-- in his mind-- to elect him president? S.V. Date broke the story at HuffPo: Trumpanzee Jacked Up His Campaign’s Trumpanzee Tower Rent Once Somebody Else Was Paying It. The rent he charged his campaign "soared in July after Trump’s campaign began accepting donor contributions."

After bragging for a year about how cheaply he was running his campaign, Donald Trump is spending more freely now that other people are contributing-- particularly when the beneficiary is himself.

Trump nearly quintupled the monthly rent his presidential campaign pays for its headquarters at Trump Tower to $169,758 in July, when he was raising funds from donors, compared with March, when he was self-funding his campaign, according to a Huffington Post review of Federal Election Commission filings. The rent jumped even though he was paying fewer staff in July than he did in March.

The Trump campaign paid Trump Tower Commercial LLC $35,458 in March-- the same amount it had been paying since last summer-- and had 197 paid employees and consultants. In July, it paid 172 employees and consultants.

“If I was a donor, I’d want answers,” said a prominent Republican National Committee member who supports Trump, asking for anonymity to speak freely. “If they don’t have any more staff, and they’re paying five times more? That’s the kind of stuff I’d read and try to make an (attack) ad out of it.”

...The FEC filings show that Trump began increasing the rent at Trump Tower starting with the May 31 payment of $72,800. The Trump campaign paid $110,684 in rent on June 9, and $169,758 on July 10... Trump’s money makes up a tiny percentage of his campaign’s spending. The bulk now comes from outside donors, both small-dollar givers and those writing maximum-limit checks of $2,700.

“Nobody cares when you’re spending your own money, but when you’re spending the donor’s $27, that could cause problems,” the RNC member said, adding that small donors especially may not be sympathetic to Trump’s extravagance. “Most campaigns run on a much tighter budget.”

For many months, Trump’s campaign prided itself on its low-rent operation. It invited reporters in to tour its headquarters on the fifth floor of Trump Tower that had once been used as production offices for “The Apprentice” TV show, which starred Trump. Photos and video from those tours show work space with unfinished ceilings, makeshift drywall partitions, and only a few campaign workers.

Commercial real estate is available in the midtown Manhattan neighborhood in the range of $70 per square foot annually, although Trump has charged more than that. Trump Tower rented 9,000 feet of office space in December at $120 per square foot, but has been unable to rent a 15,000 square-foot office that includes six terraces overlooking Fifth Avenue, even at a discounted rent of $90 per square foot.

Democrat Hillary Clinton has been leasing two entire floors in a Brooklyn office building totaling 80,000 square feet since the start of her campaign. The rent for that space has been about $212,000 per month.