Donald Trump's Historical Cuomo Dynasty-NY Democratic Party Connection Revisited--Part 2

The son of 20th-century millionaire real estate dealmaker Fred Trump [II]--celebrity real estate dealmaker and billionaire Donald Trump--wants to be nominated by the Republican Party National Convention to be the Republican Party candidate for U.S. president in the November 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Yet, ironically, members of the Trump family were apparently business associates, campaign contributors/fund-raisers, or political allies of current Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Andrew Cuomo's father, former Democratic New York Governor Mario Cuomo, historically. And the Trump family's private real estate dealmaking firm apparently profited, historically from Fred Trump [II] and Donald Trump's 20th-century connection to the Cuomo Dynasty and New York State's Democratic Party. As the 1992 book by former Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett, Trump: The Deals and The Downfall revealed:

"The retention of the Falcone [law] firm was hardly Trump's only Cuomo move. In November 1985, Donald [Trump] hired Albany Lobbyist and former [NY State] transportation commissioner Bill Hennessy, who'd just resigned as chairman of the [New York] state Democratic Party...When Cuomo's [NY State] Thruway Authority chairman resigned in 1987, the governor appointed Hennessy immediately and permitted him to remain a 90 percent partner in his lobbying firm, which continued to lobby state agencies...On a $2,000-a-month retainer, plus a $500 per diem rate, the Hennessy firm's main job for Trump was to lobby some of the very transportation officials he [Hennessy] had appointed...

"As potent as the Falcone and Hennessy combination was, Donald [Trump] did not stop there. In the spring of 1986, Trump hired UDC [Urban Development Corporation]'s in-house counsel, Susan Heilbron...The two first discussed the job while they sat together in December 1985 during...talks. Well known at the top levels of the Cuomo administration, Heilbron helped engineer the selection of her best friend as [UDC Director] Tese's new counsel, Joanne Gentile...

"Trump also tried, over a period of 6 months in 1986 and 1987, to lure Sandy Frucher into his lair. Frucher, one of the governor's half-dozen top advisers, eventually declined, after countless courting sessions.

"On Falcone's recommendation, Sive Paget & Riesel, the...environmental law firm Trump retained..., hired Richard Gordon, the executive director of the Friends of Mario Cuomo. Gordon, who had worked with the Cuomos since the 1982 campaign, remained director of the campaign committee, even though his law firm had a multiplicity of matters before state agencies.

"Trump's most unusual reach, however, was for a very special driver and bodyguard, Joe Anastasi...Anastasi had been Mario Cuomo's personal bodyguard for years, starting when [Mario] Cuomo was lieutenant governor, and had accompanied him throughout the 1982 [NY] gubernatorial campaign, starting most mornings in [Mario] Cuomo's kitchen in Queens...After [Mario] Cuomo became governor, Anastasi was on his security detail in New York City...

"In 1986, Anastasi began accompanying Trump on various trips around the country...Lucille Falcone hosted the annual Cuomo fund-raiser at the Sheraton.Trump bought the most expensive ringside table...Trump was Cuomo's biggest 1989 corporate giver, donating $25,000.

"A few nights after the fund-raiser, Donald [Trump] went to a second, private Cuomo affair--Andrew Cuomo's birthday party at a midtown pub. The party was co-hosted by one of Andrew [Cuomo]'s closest friends, Dan Klores, the...aid to public relations czar Howard Rubenstein, who had handled the Trump account for years...Donald [Trump]...spoke to...Andrew [Cuomo] for a half hour. Andrew [Cuomo] would later claim that it was the first time he'd ever met Trump...It was just one more rhetorical Cuomo ploy--hiding a compromising business arrangement behind the supposed detachment of personal distance...

"Over the years, Donald [Trump] had devised a strategy for every significant public official in his path: the seduction of the elusive [Mario] Cuomo had simply been the most manipulative and extended..."