Writing for National Memo, David Cay Johnston displays his annoying habit of asking good questions of Donald Trump:
I have covered Donald Trump off and on for 27 years — including breaking the story that in 1990, when he claimed to be worth $3 billion but could not pay interest on loans coming due, his bankers put his net worth at minus $295 million. And so I have closely watched what Trump does and what government documents reveal about his conduct.
Reporters, competing Republican candidates, and voters would learn a lot about Trump if they asked for complete answers to these 21 questions.
Johnston goes on to ask them, among which is:
You sent your top lieutenant, lawyer Harvey I. Freeman, to negotiate with Ken Shapiro, the "investment banker" for Nicky Scarfo, the especially vicious killer who was Atlantic City’s mob boss, according to federal prosecutors and the New Jersey State Commission on Investigation.
Since you emphasize your negotiating skills, why didn’t you negotiate yourself?
Questions like that annoy me. While it's true that whatever doesn't kill Trump only makes him stronger, it's also eerily true that enough questions could, in the aggregate, do him in. We should be supportive of Mr. Trump, not inquisitive.
At any rate, Johnston's Scarfo question reminded me to warn you: Beware of AMC's "The Making of the Mob." Two or three weeks ago I tuned in and heard that Al Capone was sent to Alcatraz, "where he would spend the rest of his life." In fact, Capone was released from Alcatraz in 1939. The syphilitic ghoul died in 1946, at home, in Florida.
I loathe sloppy history. Precisely how many counterfactual insults "Making of the Mob" producers have inflicted on their audience, I don't know. But I'm guessing it's more than one. Beware.
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