Trump Committed A $17 Million Insurance Fraud

(Caricature of Donald Trump is by DonkeyHotey.)

The following is some of a revealing article on Donald Trump -- written by Caleb P. Newton at the Bipartisan Report:

As it turns out, there is an even more personal side to the issue of Trump and dealing with natural disasters. While not previously unknown, an issue over storm damage to Trump’s Florida Mar-A-Lago resort that reportedly was made up has made its way back to the front of the nation’s political conversation in light of Harvey.

In October of last year, as the nation was gearing up for the general election, the Associated Press got wind of insurance claims that Trump had filed after the 2005 hurricane season, claiming massive damage to Mar-A-Lago.

There was just one problem — the damage doesn’t seem to have actually existed.

To start out with, “Mar-a-Lago members, staff and preservation officials do not recall significant damage.” Obviously, personal testimony can be hit-or-miss, but there’s more.

Palm Beach city records show that Trump never took out a permit for any major repairs to the property, even though the magnanimity of the damage that would have underlined $17 million in insurance claims would have no doubt required work that needed permits, as former city officials explained to the AP. . . .

Trump’s former butler, Anthony Senecal, who said that “Hurricane Wilma, the last of a string of storms that barreled through in 2004 and 2005, flattened trees behind Mar-a-Lago, but the house itself only lost some roof tiles.” . . .

Confirming what we could all guess is going on here, Trump admitted at one point to having deposited “some” of the money into his own accounts.

Hank Stein, the insurance agent who assessed Trump’s claims at the time they were filed, says that he can’t remember details of the breakdown of the supposed $17 million in damage.