I’m proud of my name. Since it's not yours, Trump, don't use it as your own ever again.
As a CEO of a major business, there were many things I looked for in my business leaders, but at the top of the list were honesty, integrity, and fairness.
So imagine how I felt on several levels when I initially became aware that someone has used my name to pump up their personal “brand.” And imagine also how insecure and unethical that person must be to inflate their image and personal net worth by talking to the press using an alias? Who used the John Barron (and Baron) name at least throughout the 80’s? You might already know this as it became widely known outside New York City through a series of articles in 2016. Marco Rubio even brought it up that year in a debate.
I’ve been personally silent about this until now, but information came out again this week regarding persistant fraud about the individual who used the false name. Yes, it was Donald Trump.
The following is a brief summary of the Trump false name activity gleaned from articles written by Callum Borchers, Marc Fisher, and Will Hobson, in 2016.
The use of the Barron alias was initially exposed as early as 1990 when Trump was forced as a result of a lawsuit to admit that he had used the alias. The suit dealt with Trump’s employment of undocumented migrant workers from Poland on his Trump Tower project. A lawyer who had represented the workers in their effort years earlier to recover back pay testified in the case that a man who identified himself as John Barron had called one day in 1980 threatening a lawsuit if the workers didn't stop trying to collect additional wages. Trump might have gotten away with this if not for being forced to testify under oath in 1990 to admit “I believe on occasion I used that name.”
In the 1980s, when reporters called the Trump Organization to request an interview with the boss, they were many times referred to a spokesperson, but there was problem: The spokesperson, John Barron (Baron), was actually Trump, hiding behind a fake name.
Barron, appears to have been Trump’s go-to alias when he was under scrutiny, in need of a tough spokesperson or otherwise wanting to convey a message without attaching his own name to it. After being caught in 1990, he moved on to another alias.
The first time the Barron name appears to have been used in print was in June of 1980 in a New York Times report about Trump’s decision to destroy two Art Deco sculptures he had conditionally promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In that instance, Trump used the alias to stall for three days before finally giving an interview under his own name. When he did, he told the Times that he had been out of town and unavailable. Trump kept up the Barron routine for a full decade, as reporters unwittingly quoted Barron as if he were a real person, until getting caught when forced to admit he was doing it, in the lawsuit noted above.
Below are more examples of when my name was used falsely:
1) When the original plan to build Trump Castle (in New York, instead of Atlantic City) fell apart in 1984, Barron spun the failure as a business win: “it is easier to get a large commission on a $105 million sale than to put up a building,” New York magazine quoted Barron as saying in its Aug. 13 issue that year, referring to a decision by Trump and partner Prudential Insurance to sell a Madison Avenue property, rather than develop it.
2) As owner of the USFL’s New Jersey Generals in 1985, Trump used Barron to publicly pressure his counterparts in the ill-fated pro football league to help him pick up the tab for quarterback Doug Flutie. On April 2 of that year, The Washington Post quoted Barron as saying that “when a guy goes out and spends more money than a player is worth, he expects to get partial reimbursement from the other owners.”
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Trump's next most popular alias was Jon Miller.
In 1991, reporter Sue Carswell called Trump’s office requesting an interview with Trump. Within five minutes, Carswell got a return call from Trump’s office from a man named “John Miller” who said he was a publicist. This call was recorded and obtained by the Washington Post. The man vigorously defended Trump and said, “I’m sort of new here,” and “I’m somebody that he knows, and I think somebody that he trusts and likes” and even “I’m going to do this a little, part time, and then, yeah, go on with my life.”
The man then speaks to Carswell about several of Trump's romantic entanglements. “Have you met him?” Miller asked her. “He’s a good guy, and he’s not going to hurt anybody... He treated his wife well and . .. he will treat Marla well.” (This was when he was taking up with Marla Maples.)
“Actresses,” Miller said in the call to Carswell, “just call to see if they can go out with him and things.” Madonna “wanted to go out with him.” And Miller also stated that in addition to living with Maples, Trump had “three other girlfriends.”
Fast forwarding to 2016, Washington Post reporters who were 44 minutes into a phone interview with Trump about his finances asked him a question about Miller: “Did you ever employ someone named Jon Miller as a spokesperson?”
The phone went silent, then dead. When the reporters called back and reached Trump’s secretary, she said, “I heard you got disconnected. He can’t take the call now. I don’t know what happened.”
Carswell was far from the only reporter who received calls from suspiciously Trumpian characters. Linda Stasi, then a New York Daily News gossip columnist, said Trump once left her a voice mail from an “anonymous tipster” who wanted it known that Trump had been spotted going out with models. And editors at New York tabloids said calls from Barron were at points so common that they became a recurring joke on the city desk.
Well, it's not funny to me.
BTW - my Dad took the Baron name with him as a member of the 101st airborne division in WWII fighting against a dictator in Europe. It's there where he lost his right leg in Operation Market Garden. And he was far from "a loser" as Trump has labeled our military members .
Want more information on Trump’s use of fake names? There is a long list with references here:
Director of Human Resources
1yThat is amazing