Donald Trump was not at his most convincing—even in a pretty unconvincing debate—when he said it was no big deal that he and his father had been sued by the Justice Department for racial discrimination in the 1970s because “I settled that lawsuit with no admission of guilt.” Oh, you didn’t admit guilt, eh? But that’s not the only problem with his answer, which the Washington Post’s fact checker has awarded four Pinocchios.
Trump made two key points: the “no admission of guilt” thing and that “we, along with many, many other companies throughout the country—it was a federal lawsuit—were sued.” In reality:
… the suit was squarely aimed at the Trumps and their company; it was titled: United States of America v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump and Trump Management, Inc.
As far as admission of guilt, the point was to change the Trumps’ behavior and get them to rent to black people, because they really were egregious discriminators:
According to Kranish and Fisher, the Justice Department lawsuit was “one of the most significant racial bias cases of the era.” It was based on evidence gathered by testers for the New York City Human Rights Commission, who documented that black people were told no apartments were available in Trump properties while white testers at the same time were immediately offered apartments. In a sampling of 10 Trump buildings, only 1 to 3.5 percent of the occupants were minorities, making it one of the strongest cases the Justice Department had ever seen for violations of the Fair Housing Act.
Trump fought the suit, tried to counter-sue, and finally settled, only to wind up back in court because he and his father weren’t complying with the terms of the settlement. So “no admission of guilt” boils down to “really damn guilty, but not admitting it.” And “we, along with many, many other companies … were sued” boils down to United States of America v. Fred C. Trump, Donald Trump and Trump Management, Inc.
The man lies. In this case, he lies about his record of racial discrimination. And that’s particularly relevant when you consider the racist campaign he’s running. Donald Trump has both racist words and racist deeds to his name, and there’s every reason to believe President Trump would back racist laws.
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