
Ivylise Simones
Until the election, we’re bringing you “The Trump Files,” a daily dose of telling episodes, strange but true stories, or curious scenes from the life of GOP nominee Donald Trump.
When Donald Trump was putting together the plans for Trump International Gold Links in Balmedie, Scotland, his vision included buying out the neighbors surrounding the course so he could knock down their houses and have ocean views that weren’t “obliterated by a slum.” But several of those neighbors fought back, kicking off a battle that still hasn’t fully died down.
The most famous of the bunch is Michael Forbes, who lives on a farm adjacent to the course with his mother. Trump at first tried to charm Forbes into selling his land in person. “Trump said to me, ‘What’s this land worth, about twenty dollars an acre?'” Forbes told journalist Michael D’Antonio in D’Antonio’s Trump biography, Never Enough. “I said, ‘Ach, in your dreams.'” Forbes rejected a series of offers from Trump and fought off plans for a compulsory purchase order (Scotland’s equivalent of eminent domain) from the local council. An increasingly irate Trump issued a press release in 2009 calling Forbes “a loser who is seriously damaging the image of both Aberdeenshire and his great country. His property is a disgusting blight on the community and an environmental hazard.”
Trump also sent workers to harass Forbes and the other neighbors who joined his fight, as the Washington Post detailed this year:
In one case, Trump workers blocked in the cottage belonging to Susie and John Munro, constructing a two-story-high hill in their front yard and then adding a fence and locked gate, the couple said. Whenever it rains, they say, their yard fills with water and their steep dirt road turns into a mudslide.
During a dispute over property lines, workers ripped out a fence near the home of David and Moira Milne, who live in a converted coast-guard station on a hill above the golf course. The Trump workers installed their own fence—and then sent the Milnes a bill for it.
Trump’s workers also planted a row of spruce trees that blocked Milne’s house from the ocean, installed a fence on a slice of what Forbes said was his territory, and, according to D’Antonio, allegedly cut off Forbes’ water for 10 days. The protracted fight became the subject of a 2011 documentary, You’ve Been Trumped. Forbes’ stand against Trump made him a national celebrity who was voted “Top Scot” in 2012—Trump claimed the election was rigged—and had his photo placed in the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland.
Trump eventually turned his attention to other things, like trying to block an offshore wind farm and bulldozing some of the site’s rare and ecologically valuable sand dunes. But tensions clearly remain: When Trump visited Scotland in June to plug his latest Scottish course, Forbes and Milne put up Mexican flags “to show solidarity with the Mexican people and everyone else that Trump has derided, insulted and intimidated,” as Milne told the Guardian.
Read the rest of “The Trump Files”:
- Trump Files #1: The Time Andrew Dice Clay Thanked Donald for the Hookers
- Trump Files #2: When Donald Tried to Stop Charlie Sheen’s Marriage to Brooke Mueller
- Trump Files #3: The Brief Life of the “Trump Chateau for the Indigent”
- Trump Files #4: Donald Thinks Asbestos Fears Are a Mob Conspiracy
- Trump Files #5: Donald’s Nuclear Negotiating Fantasy
- Trump Files #6: Donald Wants a Powerball for Spies
- Trump Files #7: Donald Gets An Allowance
- Trump Files #8: The Time He Went Bananas on a Water Cooler
- Trump Files #9: The Great Geico Boycott
- Trump Files #10: Donald Trump, Tax-Hike Crusader
- Trump Files #11: Watch Donald Trump Say He Would Have Done Better as a Black Man
- Trump Files #12: Donald Can’t Multiply 17 and 6
- Trump Files #13: Watch Donald Sing the “Green Acres” Theme Song in Overalls
- Trump Files #14: The Time Donald Trump Pulled Over His Limo to Stop a Beating
- Trump Files #15: When Donald Wanted to Help the Clintons Buy Their House
- Trump Files #16: He Once Forced a Small Business to Pay Him Royalties for Using the Word “Trump”
- Trump Files #17: He Dumped Wine on an “Unattractive Reporter”
- Trump Files #18: Behold the Hideous Statue He Wanted to Erect In Manhattan
- Trump Files #19: When Donald Was “Principal for a Day” and Confronted by a Fifth-Grader
- Trump Files #20: In 2012, Trump Begged GOP Presidential Candidates to Be Civil
- Trump Files #21: When Donald Couldn’t Tell the Difference Between Gorbachev and an Impersonator
- Trump Files #22: His Football Team Treated Its Cheerleaders “Like Hookers”
- Trump Files #23: The Trump Files: Donald Tried to Shut Down a Bike Race Named “Rump”
- Trump Files #24: When Donald Called Out Pat Buchanan for Bigotry
- Trump Files #25: Donald’s Most Ridiculous Appearance on Howard Stern’s Show
- Trump Files #26: How Donald Tricked New York Into Giving Him His First Huge Deal
- Trump Files #27: Donald Told Congress the Reagan Tax Cuts Were Terrible
- Trump Files #28: When Donald Destroyed Historic Art to Build Trump Tower
- Trump Files #29: Donald Wanted to Build an Insane Castle on Madison Avenue
- Trump Files #30: Donald’s Near-Death Experience (That He Invented)
- Trump Files #31: When Donald Struck Oil on the Upper West Side
- Trump Files #32: When Donald Massacred Trees in the Trump Tower Lobby
- Trump Files #33: When Donald Demanded Other People Pay for His Overpriced Quarterback
- Trump Files #34: The Time Donald Sued Someone Who Made Fun of Him for $500 Million
- Trump Files #35: Donald Tried to Make His Ghostwriter Pay for His Book Party
- Trump Files #36: Watch Donald Shave a Man’s Head on Television
- Trump Files #37: How Donald Helped Make It Harder to Get Football Tickets
- Trump Files #38: Donald Was Curious About His Baby Daughter’s Breasts
- Trump Files #39: When Democrats Courted Donald
- Trump Files #40: Watch the Trump Vodka Ad Designed for a Russian Audience
- Trump Files #41: Donald’s Cologne Smelled of Jamba Juice and Strip Clubs
- Trump Files #42: Donald Sued Other People Named Trump for Using Their Own Name
- Trump Files #43: Donald Thinks Asbestos Would Have Saved the Twin Towers
- Trump Files #44: Why Donald Threw a Fit Over His “Trump Tree” in Central Park
- Trump Files #45: Watch Trump Endorse Slim Shady for President
- Trump Files #46: The Easiest 13 Cents He Ever Made
- Trump Files #47: The Time Donald Burned a Widow’s Mortgage
- Trump Files #48: Donald’s Recurring Sex Dreams
- Trump Files #49: Trump’s Epic Insult Fight With Ed Koch
- Trump Files #50: Donald Has Some Advice for Citizen Kane
- Trump Files #51: Donald Once Turned Down a Million-Dollar Bet on “Trump: The Game”
- Trump Files #52: When Donald Tried to Shake Down Mike Tyson for $2 Million
- Trump Files #53: Donald and Melania’s Creepy, Sex-Filled Interview With Howard Stern
- Trump Files #54: Donald’s Mega-Yacht Wasn’t Big Enough For Him
- Trump Files #55: When Donald Got in a Fight With Martha Stewart
- Trump Files #56: Donald Reenacts an Iconic Scene From Top Gun
- Trump Files #57: How Donald Tried to Hide His Legal Troubles to Get His Casino Approved
- Trump Files #58: Donald’s Wall Street Tower Is Filled With Crooks
- Trump Files #59: When Donald Took Revenge by Cutting Off Health Coverage for a Sick Infant
- Trump Files #60: Donald Couldn’t Name Any of His “Handpicked” Trump U Professors
- Trump Files #61: Watch a Clip of the Awful TV Show Trump Wanted to Make About Himself
- Trump Files #62: Donald Perfectly Explains Why He Doesn’t Have a Presidential Temperament
- Trump Files #63: Donald’s Petty Revenge on Connie Chung
- Trump Files #64: Why Donald Called His 4-Year-Old Son a “Loser”
- Trump Files #65: The Time Donald Called Some of His Golf Club Members “Spoiled Rich Jewish Guys”
- Trump Files #66: “Always Be Around Unsuccessful People,” Donald Recommends
- Trump Files #67: Donald Said His Life Was “Shit.” Here’s Why.
- Trump Files #68: Donald Filmed a Music Video. It Didn’t Go Well.
- Trump Files #69: Donald Claimed “More Indian Blood” Than the Native Americans Competing With His Casinos
- Trump Files #70: Donald Has Been Inflating His Net Worth for 40 Years
- Trump Files #71: Donald Weighs In on “Ghetto Supastar”
- Trump Files #72: The Deadly Powerboat Race Donald Hosted in Atlantic City
- Trump Files #73: When Donald Fat-Shamed Miss Universe
- Trump Files #74: Yet Another Time Donald Sued Over the Word “Trump”
- Trump Files #75: Donald Thinks Exercising Might Kill You
- Trump Files #76: Donald’s Big Book of Hitler Speeches
- Trump Files #77: When Donald Ran Afoul of Ancient Scottish Heraldry Law
- Trump Files #78: Donald Accuses a Whiskey Company of Election Fraud
- Trump Files #79: When Donald’s Anti-Japanese Comments Came Back to Haunt Him
- Trump Files #80: The Shady Way Fred Trump Tried to Save His Son’s Casino
- Trump Files #81: Donald’s Creepy Poolside Parties in Florida
- Trump Files #82: Donald Gives a Lesson in How Not to Ski With Your Kids
- Trump Files #83: Listen to Donald Brag About His Affairs—While Pretending to Be Someone Else
- Trump Files #84: How Donald Made a Fortune by Dumping His Debt on Other People
- Trump Files #85: When Donald Bought a Nightclub From an Infamous Mobster
- Trump Files #86: Donald Sues Himself—And Wins!