At Mar-a-Lago, It’s Golf and National Security Breaches
A team of Miami Herald reporters who spent years tracking shady behavior at Trump’s Palm Beach property describe a ‘nightmare scenario’
From the 24-karat-gold-plated walls to the antique furniture, Mar-a-Lago has for 93 years been the shimmering jewel of Palm Beach architecture. In 1985, Donald Trump bought the 20-acre estate and turned it into an exclusive members-only club. Today, it also operates as the president’s de facto primary residence — an amalgam that has raised more than a few eyebrows, along with major national security concerns, over the last four years. Trump is the first sitting president to also own a private club, and he doesn’t shy away from exploiting its perks. As reporters Sarah Blaskey, Caitlin Ostroff, Nicholas Nehamas, and Jay Weaver write in their new book, The Grifter’s Club: Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and the Selling of the Presidency, “Mar-a-Lago’s importance to international politics is no secret — it’s a perk the president actively markets.”
The four journalists, all of whom covered Mar-a-Lago for the Miami Herald (though Ostroff has since gone to the Wall Street Journal), offer a comprehensive and disturbing account of Trump’s self-styled “Winter White House,” providing fresh revelations about the president’s…
