Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, unusually candid in his media appearances, invented a spokesman that he himself portrayed off and on for a decade so he could buy himself time before talking to the press, according to a report from the Washington Post.
The Post first found mention of the alias John Barron (sometimes Baron) on June 6, 1980. The Post reported Monday that the first mention of Barron/Baron was in the New York Times.
It appeared Trump used the alias so Trump could stall for three days before giving an interview about his decision to destroy two sculptures he had “conditionally promised to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” (Apparently he told the Times in that interview that he had been unavailable.)
Trump admitted that he “on occasion” used the alias during testimony for a 1990 lawsuit about his use of undocumented workers to build Trump Tower.
The Post noted that the Trump patriarch, Fred, pulled a similar stunt with a “Mr. Green.”
