On Sept. 21, 1981, the FBI got a strange call from Trump. He said he had traveled to Trenton the previous week to meet with Mickey Brown, the director of New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement. Trump was worried about the status of his application for a casino license. Brown told Trump that everything was on track except for “one problem” that might draw out the investigation — his ties to Sullivan, according to an FBI report.

Brown said that Sullivan had not been candid with investigators about his background and his business activities.

To defend himself and “nip things in the bud,” Trump said he told Brown that Sullivan had introduced him to two FBI agents and was close to the agency.

“TRUMP stated that he talked with BROWN about nothing of a substantive nature, particularly involving any proposed undercover activity,” the report states.

In a call with Sullivan that same day, Stowe and Taylor learned that Sullivan had been asked by gaming investigators specifically about his association with the FBI. “Source declined to answer this question,” the report said.

Trump’s meeting with Brown put into peril the undercover operation to ferret out organized crime proposed at Trump’s planned casino, documents and interviews show.

By late September, the FBI proposal was in a “thoroughly finished state,” but, Stowe said, it apparently never came to fruition.