This story has been known in its outlines for many years. But with this weekend's Times revelation it takes on a new relevance. In short, it is the story of how Donald Trump ran his Atlantic City-based casino empire into the ground but managed to survive and rebound by finding other people to assume his debts. It's a highly revealing story about Trump the man and businessman because it's hard to believe the totality of what happened didn't involve committing some serious crimes. But it's also the critical backstory to that loss of almost $1 billion which appears to have allowed Trump to avoid paying income taxes almost ever since.
The Post has a good run-down of the details of what happened. Here's an overview. Trump ran into severe financial difficulties with his casinos in the early 90s, running up a massive amount of debt even as others were making a killing in the casino business. He avoided personal ruin in part by getting the banks who backed him to forgive a lot of the debt. But he also tricked members of the public into taking over his failed businesses....
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-con-man-of-epic-proportions--2
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