Fred Trump

Born in the Bronx on October 11, 1905, to German immigrants, Frederick Christ Trump started working in home construction in the 1920s and soon took over his parents' real-estate operation. His company built single-family houses in Queens, apartments for war workers during World War II, and eventually more than 27,000 units across New York. Along the way he faced a U.S. Senate investigation for profiteering in 1954 and a New York State probe in 1966; in 1973, two years after Donald became president of the business, the Justice Department sued father and son for racial discrimination against Black renters. He was arrested at a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1927, though no clear evidence ties him to the group, and from World War II on he denied his German roots and backed Jewish causes. According to The New York Times, Fred and his wife Mary funneled over $1 billion to their children while dodging half a billion in gift taxes, setting up a 1992 subsidiary to move the money and transferring building ownership shortly before his death on June 25, 1999 - properties the children later sold for sixteen times their declared value.