Ted Cruz Raises Issue of Donald Trump’s Mob Connections

By Al Perrotta Published on March 1, 2016

Sen. Ted Cruz on Sunday raised the issue of Donald Trump’s association with members of the mob, suggesting one reason the real estate developer isn’t releasing his tax returns is because it would further expose those ties.

“There have been multiple media reports about Donald’s business dealings with the mob, with the Mafia,” Cruz said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Maybe his taxes show those business dealings are a lot more extensive than has been reported.”

Host Chuck Todd called the accusation, “openly speculative” and asked, “Do you have any facts to support that Donald Trump has mob ties?” Cruz cited reports from ABC News and CNN.

“Fat Tony” Salerno

Trump Plaza - 900“For example,” said Cruz, “S&A Construction, which was owned by ‘Fat Tony’ Salerno, who is a mobster who is in jail. It is owned by two of the major New York crime families.” As CNN reported in July, the cement company S&A Construction was used in the construction of the Trump Plaza condos in Manhattan.

S&A was controlled by Salerno, head of the Genovese crime family and Paul Castellano, head of the Gambino family.  In fact, as the New York Times reported, Salerno’s final trial was for a “scheme to allocate contracts and obtain payoffs for constructing the concrete superstructures of 16 Manhattan buildings,” including Trump Plaza. Cruz did have one fact wrong. Salerno died in prison in 1992.

Felix Sater

An ABC News report in December brought out Trump’s ties to Felix Sater, who the New York Post called “a twice-convicted Russian emigre who had documented Mafia connections.” Their relationship “dates back to the early 2000s, when the Trump Organization worked on several occasions with a small development firm based in Trump Tower called the Bayrock Group, where Sater was an executive until 2007.”

In a video deposition for a civil lawsuit two years ago, Trump downplayed his connection to Sater. “If he were sitting in the room right now,” he said under oath, “I really wouldn’t know what he looked like.” Photographs show Trump and Sater together at a Denver business conference in 2005 and posing together at the 2007 launch party for the Trump SOHO Hotel and Condominium. Photos may be easy to dismiss. But not so much Sater’s business card, where he claimed to be a senior advisor to Trump. Trump’s General Counsel, Alan Garten, admitted to ABC News that the card is legitimate.

Felix H. Slater Business Card Trump - 900

Trump SOHO New York - 900

Flickr/Peter Burka

Garten told ABC it was common practice in the real estate industry to provide such business cards “in order for brokers to be able to make initial introductions.” At first, Garden insisted Trump had “no real direct relationship with Felix Slater,” but later amended that to say the relationship was minimal. “Mr. Sater’s involvement in the projects, the projects that went forward, SoHo and Fort Lauderdale, may have existed in the beginning,” the lawyer said, “but long term there was very little involvement.”

In 2000, Federal prosecutors announced that Sater had pleaded guilty in a federal racketeering case and was found to have been collaborating with four New York mob families. He avoided prison by agreeing to becoming a government witness.

The Political Fallout

Ted Cruz argues that these mob ties would undermine Trump’s chances in the November election. “The important point is, George, in the general election, Hillary Clinton is going to shine a light on all of this,” Cruz told This Week with George Stephanopoulos, “And Republican primary voters deserve to know.”

But will Republican voters know in time? A big day in tomorrow’s Super Tuesday’s primaries could put Trump well on the way to the GOP nomination. And the latest numbers show it is shaping up to be a very big day for the billionaire who brags he gets along with everybody … even, perhaps, the mafia.

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