Inside Historic Trump Racial Discrimination Case

In 1973, the Justice Department filed the largest federal housing discrimination suit ever at the time against the Trump firm, then led by its 27-year-old president, Donald Trump. The company was accused of purposefully turning away applications from people of color, and for corralling black and Puerto Rican applicants away from mostly white housing into buildings that had many minorities. Trump enlisted Roy Cohn, the lawyer who had been a top aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s effort to hunt out communists in government, and counter-sued the government for $100 million, saying the company was falsely accused. The case is recounted in a Washington Post article, which says it “served as an early look at the hardball tactics he has employed in business and, more recently, in politics.”