March 28, 2019

The Brother of Alleged Serial Killer Robert Durst Throws Shade at Donald Trump

Robert Durst is in jail, but Twitter remains free.

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Before being elected president, thanks to so many variables outside his basic fitness for the office—the Comey letter, racism, the flawed Clinton candidacy, Russian interference, and the infuriatingly unshakable image of success from his role on a TV reality show—Donald Trump was a simple New York City real estate developer. In that profession, he made many enemies. One of those enemies was fellow NYC real estate developer Douglas Durst, who has been responsible for the new World Trade Center and the Bank of America Tower among other high profile real estate ventures. Over the years, ever-sensitive to competition, Trump has taken to social media to insult Durst. 

In comparison with what he has tweeted as president, most of these Durst digs are fairly banal insider comments about real estate. Other times they are…uh…decidedly not. 

 

Douglas Durst’s brother, eh? Who could that be? Lest you have forgotten, he is the infamous criminal and suspected serial killer Robert Durst, who reemerged as a person of note with the 2015 HBO true crime series The Jinx. The series recounted the many deaths Durst has been linked to but never convicted of, including one in 2001, when Robert Durst was tried in Texas for the murder of his elderly neighbor. Prosecutors alleged that he killed him, chopped up the body, and tossed it into Galveston Bay. He was acquitted of the murder charge but pled guilty to chopping up the body. 

The brothers Durst are a study in contrasts. Douglas, a rather low-key, New York billionaire developer, and Robert, a clever, psychopath who successfully avoided facing the consequences of his actions until he literally admitted guilt on HBO. They are not fans of each other. Donald Trump’s preference appears to have been for Robert, who is currently incarcerated in California awaiting trial in an unrelated murder.

But a week after Attorney General Bob Barr told Congress that the president would not face obstruction of justice charges, Douglas Durst took to Twitter to point out a crucial distinction between his brother and the president.  

Robert Durst’s next murder trial is scheduled to begin in September. Twitter remains free.

(h/t Maggie Haberman)

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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