Donald Trump will go down in history as a master con man, but do his victims care?

Donald Trump will go down in history as a master con man, but do his victims care?

In the 1970s,  I spent almost seven years as head of a Denver and multi-five county District Attorney's investigative unit into white-collar crime. Near the end of that period, I helped enforce the new Colorado Consumer protection act with civil authority. If anything, my antennae go into overdrive when I smell con artists, Donald Trump fit the profile of con artists I have known..  Puffery, exaggerations, lying, and hyper-pressure sales technique are some of the marks of confidence fraudsters and con artists. They depend on "a sucker is born every minute" to succeed. The January 6 committee this past week shined a light on a potential criminal charge against Trump for knowingly lying about whether the 2020 election was stolen, alleging he used money he raised by promoting the lie (2020 election was stolen by fraud) after he was told it was a lie. His sales pitch was money raised would go to carry on the fight in court. The money was to go into a fund, which appeared to be non-existent  Per the hearings, the fraudster involved was Trump himself, not his political opponents. Instead of his sales pitch, the $250 million raised paid for his own property's usage benefitted political loyalists post administration employment in a political action organization and an elected official's nonprofit. Those defrauded have not yet complained. Do they care? Perhaps they are willfully blind, have not been following the hearings, or they are OK with what he did with the money even if t was not in the way it was promised because it was still used for 'the cause" of his continued political influence. Victims of fraud, I have found, are often afraid to admit to themselves or to others they were conned, either because they are embarrassed or are in denial. Sometimes they will try to justify their foolish actions and even support the perp. Nonetheless, there is value in prosecution or lawsuits, either as a deterrent and warning to others or to get restitution even for those who do not know they were ripped off. The purpose of criminal prosecution, theft by deception,  is to punish and deter further action or others contemplating doing it.. Civil litigation can result in victims getting some money back.  It will be interesting if some state attorney general or DA files criminal charges or files a lawsuit per enforcement of state laws. Trump has a history of being sued or prosecuted for similar fraudulent practices, such as in Trump University and his charitable foundation, resulting in penalties and millions in refunds to his victims.  It has not deterred him so far,  but the saga is not over.

  Proof of intentional deception is the element we needed to file criminal charges. We looked for volume and patterns of criminal or civil fraudulent behavior in the complaints we received.   The criminal statute we were authorized to investigate and to enforce as "theft by deception". Not all con artists get caught, sued, or go to jail, by a long shot. Donald Trump did get caught in his Trump University for operating a fraud, and his family's charitable foundation resulted in his family being forbidden to participate again in such a "charitable" foundation, money used to benefit himself..  . His tax and evaluation of the worth of his properties are under investigation even now. The Consumer Protection Act in various states gives state  Attorneys General civil authority to recover missed money for consumers, and the element of proving criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt is not required. The burden of these civil powers is not so hard to prove, just needing the "preponderance of evidence", meaning the balance of evidence is sufficient, not requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt to get a criminal conviction.. . The other issue is the use of "fraud by wire," which may be involved in fueling criminal charges. It is not unlike the use of mail to commit a fraud under which the post office can trigger criminal prosecution.     The other issue in a criminal prosecution that the Department of Justice must consider is should they be in the business of criminally prosecuting a former president. It sets a dangerous precedence for the next regime to do until their political enemies who served before them. For that reason, the civil approach to recover money on behalf of victims makes more sense to avoid that dilemma. One thing is clear, Trump has a history of being a successful con artist until he got caught, losing legal action that cost him millions, in or out of elected office, yet he was never deterred from doing something similar again and again.  

The Jan. 6 panel says the Trump campaign misled donors using election lies : NPR

Donald Trump investigation reveals new details of alleged fraud - BBC News

Donald J. Trump Pays Court-Ordered $2 Million For Illegally Using Trump Foundation Funds  | New York State Attorney General (ny.gov)

"The big ripoff": Jan. 6 committee lays out how false election claims fueled Trump fundraising - CBS News

 Judge finalizes $25 million settlement for 'victims of Donald Trump's fraudulent university' - ABC News (go.com)

In 2016, he was already a con man   A link to my blog posting calling Trump a con man in 2016

Felicia Muftic is the author of The Colorado Consumer Handbook, 1982,  available in the Library of Congress 

HC107.C73 C635 

  and in the Denver Public Library Call Number: C640.730978 M891co....It is long out of print.

 

Trump the Con man in 2016

The gun safety compromise contains a clause that could have prevented a family trauma

While I had hoped Congressional action on gun safety would have banned the sale of weapons of war to those under 21 years of age, if passed, it still addresses the issue in a broader way. The compromise on gun safety legislation that appears to have been made over the weekend has an element that would possibly have prevented a tragedy in our own family and in a friend's family as well.  .  The element: concerned requiring an enhanced background check on those under 21 years of age buying a gun of any kind. and a pause in the purchase until the check is completed.  The element includes reporting any juvenile records as well. While mass shootings are usually committed by AR15s and weapons of war, there are still shootings that involve 18-year-olds legally buying shotguns.  While the use of weapons of war makes it possible for a shooter to wipe out a whole classroom, there are school shootings that involve shotguns, as well.  In Colorado, only those over 21 years can purchase handguns, thanks to a law dating to prior years.  

 A granddaughter was in the next classroom in a Denver suburb, Centennial, when a school shooter at Arapahoe High took his own life.  It was then I became acutely aware the survivors of gun violence have wounds, too. Some never heal. She has been seeking professional mental health services ever since and was diagnosed with PTSD.  So has her mother, a teacher in the Columbine school district, who witnessed her daughter in another suburban district led by police officers out of the school building. Both had  part of the mental health professional services paid by the county sheriff's office because they were considered victims of a crime.  The wounds of survivors and their families can last a lifetime.   The Arapahoe High School shooting did result in a law passed in Colorado to hold the school responsible for taking action when they knew or suspected a student was a potential danger, as it was in this case, but the law had flaws.  School Administrators Unsure How To Protect Students Under New Law | Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org) 

 Report: Arapahoe High School staff ignored warning signs before 2013 shooting - CBS News

     Kendrick Castillo's parents sue STEM School Highlands Ranch over 2019 shooting in possible first test of Claire Davis Act (denverpost.com) (The Castillo case also had a personal connection. A friend of mine's daughter's boyfriend was the person the shooter intended to kill, but Castillo's actions that took his own life prevented the shooter from reaching his goal.)  

More thoughts on weapons of war

Arapahoe High shooting reports detail 3 major failures in procedures – The Denver Post

Lessons from Uvalde, Buffalo, and Boulder: extreme gun permissiveness mean and warped

 Update: 12/22 Colorado breaks mass shooting record (cpr.org)  This is a record of shame. The Colorado Springs Q night club mass shooting puts Colorado at the top for mass shooting. In fact, Columbine took place in Colorado and became an ikon, the template for many more mass killers. On a social media FB, I just saw an example of the rationale extremists use to promote denying any sensible gun legislation. It depicted the report of a  woman who had a pistol in her purse putting down a wannabe mass killer with a AR 15. She was lucky she was not in Uvalde or in Buffalo, or in Boulder. In Colorado, you can get a concealed weapon permit, and if local city/county laws permit it, open carry. You can defend your home under the "castle doctrine".  But why should she or anyone have to have been put in the position to have to defend themselves against a war weapon, anyway? In Uvalde, cops refused to pull their pistols on a mass killer armed with weapons of war.; in Buffalo, the guard pulled his pistol and was shot dead by the mass killer armed with a war weapon.  In Boulder, a police officer's first response was shot dead by a war weapon armed shooter who went on to take 9 more lives.  Those opposing any constraints on the purchase of weapons of war weapon are extreme and mean, with warped priorities, pitting their absolutist versions of their rights against the rights to life of kids, shoppers, concert, movie, and churchgoers. .  .Here was my response to that FB posting:

The warped minds are the extreme gun rightists. They want no restraints on guns, period.  Their unrestricted rights are more important than kids and supermarket shoppers. . That is mean and extreme with very warped values and priorities.  Rights to gun use are not unlimited, and state, local, and federal case laws restricting access have been ruled and upheld in courts when are challenged  Heller, the Supreme Court ruling, does only protects handguns and shotguns to protect home It is no blank check to permit every right to own and use guns, no matter what the NRA says. Nothing is likely to pass Congress that would keep someone 21 and older from buying non-weapons of war. Colorado has some of the most stringent controls in the nation, but it does not forbid purchases of weapons of war by those 18 and older because all neighboring states are an easier purchase where rules are laxer. The age limit is a federal matter for that reason and is useless in Colorado alone.  I support the federal age limit raised to 21 for gun purchases for that reason. FYI. I am a gun owner.

.  However, when law enforcement is outgunned by school shooters and will not sacrifice their lives to save kids in a classroom, that is both a moral and practical dilemma, but why put law enforcement in that bind, anyway?. To argue forbidding their 18-to21-year-old son or an older guy on the way to settle a score with a doctor just as he would stop by McDonald's, no background check, no waiting period, then that too needs to be addressed both locally and federally. To give the reason for permitting kids 18 to be able to buy a AR 15 to kill praise dogs instead of shotguns,. and not caring about mass killings of people and kids is an example of outrageously warped priorities. The use of a weapon of war as the only way to get rid of varmints is not essential.  Shotguns have served that purpose for years out here in the West. 

What is s true in Colorado, there is a cooling-off period in buying a handgun, but not in buying weapons of war that can decapitate a child in one blast.  One of my first jobs was in a Denver DA's office, leading an investigative unit into cases of white-collar crimes in the 1970s.  There had been a rash of murders of individuals by those who bought a pistol in a fit of the passion or hate and killed a spouse or a rival shortly thereafter. The DA at the time, Dale Tooley, went on a crusade against these "Saturday night specials," and sales became locally regulated and later State regulated: purchasers must be 21 years old and subject to background checks. Denver bans the sale of weapons of war and the size of clips, with stricter requirements than some of the State laws. One of my second jobs was as Denver's city clerk, who sat through city council meetings and heard testimony from law officers who complained they were outgunned by weapons by gang members that used large clips  Large clips over 15 rounds are now banned in the state and in Denver.  My sympathy was and is with the cops. All of this gained new urgency personally when a grandson was in the closest school to Sandy Hook and spent the hours under his desk sheltering in place. The following is also included in a June 13 posting)  It became even more urgent when a granddaughter was in the next classroom in a Denver suburb, Centennial when a school shooter at Arapahoe High took his own life.  It was then I became acutely aware the survivors of gun violence have wounds, too. Some never heal. She has been seeking professional mental health services ever since and was diagnosed with PTSD.  So has her mother, a teacher in the Columbine school district, who witnessed her daughter in another suburban district led by police officers out of the school building.  The wounds of survivors and their families can last a lifetime.   The Arapahoe High School shooting did result in a law passed in Colorado to hold the school responsible for taking action when they knew or suspected a student was a potential danger, as it was in this case, but the law had flaws.  School Administrators Unsure How To Protect Students Under New Law | Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org)  Report: Arapahoe High School staff ignored warning signs before 2013 shooting - CBS News     Kendrick Castillo's parents sue STEM School Highlands Ranch over 2019 shooting in possible first test of Claire Davis Act (denverpost.com)

Arapahoe High shooting reports detail 3 major failures in procedures – The Denver Post

Excellent source of Denver and Colorado gun laws: Gun Laws in Colorado And The City of Denver (What Is Legal?) (denvercocriminaldefenselawyer.com)

Source of Colorado gun laws     :9 questions about gun laws in Colorado, answered | Colorado Public Radio (cpr.org)       including recent laws passed in 2022 in the wake of a super market mass shooting in Boulder "Colorado has passed a number of laws within the last decade aimed at addressing gun violence, often in response to mass shootings. Voters in the state chose to close the so-called ‘gun show loophole’ after the Columbine massacre in 1999, requiring background checks for purchases at trade shows.......Colorado does not have a waiting period for gun purchases. It also does not have any specific age restrictions and instead defaults to the federal rules: A person must be at least 18 years old to purchase rifles and other long guns, and 21 to buy handguns.

Coloradans 21 years and older can get a permit for concealed carry, issued through the local sheriff’s office; the state does not require gun owners to give a reason for wanting one. It also honors permits from most other states. No permit is needed to carry openly, although some cities, like Denver, ban it. State law bans the creation of any sort of firearms registry by the government.

The state has a ‘castle doctrine’ allowing people to use deadly force in their own homes, without a duty to retreat..

Suspect Charged With 10 Counts of Murder in Boulder, Colo., Shooting - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

More recent gun laws in the Colorado include:

• Universal background checks for all sales, including private sales.
• A ban on magazines that hold more than 15 rounds.
• Restrictions on gun ownership for certain domestic violence offenders.
• A Red Flag Law that allows a family member or law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily remove someone’s firearms if they’re deemed a danger to themselves or others. These are known as Extreme Risk Protection Orders.
• A requirement that gun owners securely store their firearms when not in use.
• A requirement that gun owners report to law enforcement any lost or stolen weapons.
• Allowing cities and counties to pass stricter gun laws than the state.
• Preventing people convicted of certain violent misdemeanors from buying a gun for five years.
• Closing the so-called ‘Charleston loophole’ that allowed gun dealers to finish a transaction without a background check if the check wasn’t completed in three days.
• The ‘Vote Without Fear Act,’ which bars the open carry of firearms within 100 feet of a polling location.
• Creating an Office of Gun Violence Prevention.
• 
  

July 9, 2022 update:  The role of hate speech in fomenting violence and mass killings is explored in this  USA Today article:

Border invasion to grooming children: How GOP uses 'dangerous' words (usatoday.com)

No wonder FOX did not want their audience to hear the January 6 Committee hearing broadcast..

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time".

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)   as well as PT Barnum

Quote Details: Abraham Lincoln: You can fool some... - The Quotations Page"

FOX did not carry the June 9 hearings of the January 6 Committee. No wonder FOX did not want their audience to see this. Some viewers may realize they had been fooled by both FOX and Trump and FOX feared that. The videos and sworn testimony of witnesses June 9 spoke louder than a thousand words that pundits, reporters, or politicians could ever write, orate,  or opine. 

Their audience would have heard AG Bill Barr's sworn testimony that in December, he told Trump there was no evidence of fraud. The election was not stolen,  To claim otherwise was bullshit. Another staffer in charge of analyzing the vote agreed.  After being told that, Trump doubled down on his message that the election was stolen. That is one reason Barr said he resigned. The importance of that was that Trump knowingly lied as he continued to say the election was stolen.  No wonder FOX did not want their audience to see the video and capitol police testimony that this was no peaceful demonstration. Testimony by a surviving police officer was riveting, as she slipped on the blood of her fellow officers and saw combat while she herself was wounded. No wonder FOX did not want their audience to learn 250 Proud Boys were in place at the Capitol, ready to commit violence hours before the Stop the Steal Rally, and sprang into action when the Rally attendees arrived at the Capitol to provide the mass they needed to become violent. No wonder FOX did not want their audience to learn that it was Pence who called Gen. Milley to send in the National Guard because Trump was AWOL during the riot and unresponsive to calls by his family and staff to stop the riot    

FOX and their like-minded base their reasons for not carrying the public hearings because they do not agree it is legitimate.  That is their BS opinion but not the court that ruled. on the RNC complaint. On May 1, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that none of these concerns were enough to stop the committee's work. The ruling was made by Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee.

Kelly wrote that concern over the numerical divergence was "not an unreasonable position,’" but he added that the court "must give ‘great weight’ to the House’s own actions," including two occasions in which House Republicans failed to challenge the committee’s underlying legitimacy before casting votes related to the committee" PolitiFact | The legitimacy of the Jan. 6 committee, explained"

Jan. 6 Capitol riot arrests climb as Select Committee hearings start (usatoday.com)