But none of this preëxisting information can detract from the monumental investigation into the Trump family’s finances that the Times published on Tuesday. One story that has been told many times: in the early nineteen-nineties, when one of Trump’s Atlantic City casinos, Trump Castle, was struggling to make an interest payment on its debt, the elder Trump dispatched a lawyer to buy almost $3.5 million worth of gambling chips, thereby extending the casino a disguised loan. It is well known that Trump’s late father, Fred Trump, who was one of the biggest property developers in New York, helped finance some of his second son’s early real-estate deals, and, later on, occasionally bailed him out. The Times claims that Trump didn’t merely get some family support-he received a vast fortune-and some of the family’s schemes amounted to “outright fraud.” Photograph by Ted Thai / The LIFE Picture Collection / GettyĬareful financial journalists and investigative reporters who have covered Donald Trump for decades long ago dismissed his claim to be a self-made billionaire as self-serving hogwash.

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