To The Greatest Page-Donald Trump's Mafia Mind-Set

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, the former underboss of the Gambino organized-crime family, is a mass murderer (19 bodies, maybe more, across his distinguished career), and also the most consequential turncoat in the history of organized crime. Gravano, whom I came to know while covering the Mob in the 1990s, had many thoughts about respect and loyalty, which he shared with me in a number of conversations. Like most mobsters—including, and especially, those who became known for their “ratting”—he was preoccupied with matters of honor.

At the time of those conversations, Gravano, whose testimony led directly to the downfall of his former boss, John Gotti, was participating in the federal witness-security program, and we met at a number of locations in the Southwest. I did not know it at the time, but while under federal protection Gravano was leading Arizona’s largest Ecstasy-distribution ring. He was also in the pool-building business.

I have not seen Gravano in a very long time—he has spent most of the past two decades in prison, after having failed to hide his drug-distribution business from his federal monitors—but my thoughts turned to him yesterday, when I read President Donald Trump’s tweet on the subject of loyalty and respect. The president, who is obviously perturbed by the felony conviction of his former campaign chair Paul Manafort and the plea deal taken by his former attorney Michael Cohen, wrote the following: “I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family. ‘Justice’”—a cutting reference to the Justice Department, which he oversees as the leader of the executive branch—“took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to ‘break’ - make up stories in order to get a ‘deal.’ Such respect for a brave man!”


What we see in this astonishing tweet is an implicit endorsement by the president of the United States of omertà, the Mafia code of silence, which has been honored, especially over the past 30 years or so, more in theory than in practice.

Trump expanded upon his views this morning, in an interview on Fox & Friends, in which he seemed to refer, obliquely, though elegiacally, to the dismantling of the Mafia in New York City (an effort led for a time by his current attorney Rudy Giuliani).

“It’s called ‘flipping’ and it almost ought to be illegal,” Trump said. “I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years, I have been watching flippers. Everything is wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go.”

...

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/08/trump-gravano-gotti-mafia/568273/

[H2O Man]

1. Recommended.

Interesting, I had recently watched a couple programs about "Sammy the Bull." I certainly wouldn't want him to be president, but I find him more sympathetic than Trump. And he was employed by the domestic mob, not the Russian mob.

[malaise]

2. Many folks are saying the Con and his goons sound like

Mobsters.
How did this ever happen?
These criminals have been untouched and untouchable while they were locking up folks for a ganja spliff.

[Lindsay]

4. And some people are saying

that Trump ratted out other mobsters to get out of his own problems with the law.

Dunno how factual that is, but with any luck the entire truth will come out one of these days.

[malaise]

6. LOL

They're all scumbags and criminals
It's fun to watch them destroy one another.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. John Gotti had more to recommend him than Trump.

[ADX]

5. Chump isn't a gangster or a mob boss, he just likes to think of himself as such...

...Criminals though they may be, many mobsters have more honor and integrity than Chump ever did or ever will. He's a blowhard poser, a fake-ass tough guy who talks a big game but that's about it. I could go on but I'll just let Victoria Gotti, the Teflon Don's widow, tell it:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/victoria-gotti-king-con-donald-trump-should-take-his-pig-self-back-to-dump-tower