2016 May 14^th

Mr. Trump has treated us to another bit of theatre. The plot began over thirty years ago but has emerged again recently in a Washington Post article. Trump back then had been using a fictional surrogate PR person named John Miller to make comments to the press. This was all back in 1991 so why worry now? The Washington Post has recently released details of these famous John Miller tapes. They aren’t saying how they obtained the tapes. Only one copy was known to exist and that copy was in the hands of the woman reporter, Sue Carswell, who talked to John Miller and made a tape of the conversation. She says that she didn’t give her copy to the Post. It’s a mystery!

OK, let’s recap this curious plot: In 1991 Sue Carswell, a reporter for “People” magazine, got a call from a John Miller who claimed to be a recent PR hire representing Donald Trump. Miller claimed to know Donald Trump very well, unbelievably well for someone so recently hired. At the time, Trump was cohabiting with the model Marla Maples who had been named by Ivana Trump, Trump’s first wife, in her divorce suit against Donald Trump.

John Miller commented to Sue Carswell at some length about Donald Trump’s love life. Indeed Miller did this in speech patterns, language and bombast typical even then of Donald Trump himself. Miller commented to Carswell that Mr. Trump was not ready to marry Marla Maples, but if he ever did, he would be the most wonderful husband. Miller also told Carswell that Mr. Trump had three other girlfriends in addition to Marla Maples and that other women called him all the time to arrange for “dates.”

Keep in mind that Trump admitted under oath that he sometimes used a surrogate, John Barron, to help negotiate certain business arrangements. This was common knowledge so Carswell hearing those Trumpian cadences was convinced she was, in fact, speaking to Donald Trump. Her interview was published in due course. Why would Trump, assuming it was Trump, pull such a stunt? Perhaps he wanted to communicate something to Marla Maples; who knows?

Subsequently, the real Trump called Carswell and admitted the John Miller phone call had been a hoax and he apologized for what he then viewed as a joke gone wrong. To make amends he offered to take Sue Carswell and her editor out to a nightclub. Carswell claims that a stretch limo bearing Donald Trump and Marla Maples arrived for them at the appointed time. After about fifteen minutes, Trump claimed that because he didn’t drink and that he had other activities needing his attention he was going to leave. Trump and Maples then left.

The tape of Trump (Miller) talking to Carswell has been analyzed by an analyst who claims that because of its age he cannot do all of the necessary sound spectrographic analyses but on the basis of what he can do he is certain that the voice on the tape is Donald Trump’s. Trump is now again in complete denial. He claims that isn’t his voice, that it doesn’t even sound like him. Still, many on the right believe that he will make a wonderful President. For them dissembling is not a problem.