‘The Grifter’s Club’: Book by Herald journalists examines Mar-a-Lago ‘shadow government’
It’s the place where President Donald Trump comes to unwind with friends and supporters, where issues of national security have been hashed out at candle-lit tables in front of wealthy socialites, where an overeager retiree once posted a selfie on Facebook with a presidential aide-de-camp holding what looked very much like the “nuclear football.”
And it’s where multiple “Chinese tourists” have been caught trespassing under mysterious circumstances.
Mar-a-Lago, the sumptuous Spanish-style villa in Palm Beach built by cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, is now the primary residence of Donald J. Trump.
And it is the subject of a soon-to-be released book by four journalists who have covered Mar-a-Lago for the Miami Herald, the book publisher announced Wednesday.
“The Grifter’s Club,” subtitled “Trump, Mar-a-Lago, and the Selling of the Presidency,” is written by Sarah Blaskey, Caitlin Ostroff (now with the Wall Street Journal), Nicholas Nehamas and Jay Weaver.
Publishing house PublicAffairs calls it “a breakthrough account of the palatial resort where President Trump conducts government business with little regard for ethics, security, or the law.”
At the Herald, the journalists have consistently broken news about the mansion, which doubles as a social club where initiation fees start at $200,000, payable to the Trump Organization.
It is a place where business and government overlap — where, according to the book, club members have exerted influence over government operations in what is effectively a “shadow administration.”
“Mar-a-Lago has become the meeting point for all the worst habits of the Trump administration, brilliantly captured by the Miami Herald reporting team that has documented them most assiduously,” said book publisher Clive Priddle.
Last year, after the owner of the New England Patriots, Robert Kraft, was charged with buying sex at an “Asian spa” in Jupiter, the Herald journalists researched the spa’s ownership history and discovered a woman named Li “Cindy” Yang.
The reporters learned that Yang, founder and former owner of the spa, had become a devotee of Donald Trump and had fashioned a business purchasing tickets to Mar-a-Lago events and packaging them as the centerpiece of tours, often marketed to businessmen and women from China.
Proceeds went into the president’s pocket.
The reporters labeled this phenomenon Trump Tourism.
Not long after, a woman from China who had purchased a travel package from a Yang associate was arrested trying to barge into the club (on the day of a canceled event) toting a purse bristling with electronic devices. She said she was there to use the pool. Yujing Zhang was subsequently convicted of trespassing and is expected to be deported.
The book expands on the journalists’ reporting for the Herald, offering fresh revelations about the federal investigation of suspected malware being brought into Mar-a-Lago; the apparent misuse of taxpayer dollars there; the government work being conducted in unsecured locations, often with foreign dignitaries present; and how Mar-a-Lago’s security rules undermine the Secret Service, and thus national security.
World English rights to the book were acquired by Benjamin Adams, executive editor at PublicAffairs, from David Patterson at Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency, representing the authors.
PublicAffairs — an imprint of Perseus Books, subsidiary of Hachette Book Group Inc. — will publish “The Grifter’s Club” in hardcover, ebook, and audio on June 16, 2020.
The book will be published in the United Kingdom by Huw Armstrong at Hodder & Stoughton.
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 9:00 AM.
