The Florida social club where Donald Trump, a convicted felon and former president, stands accused of illegally storing official classified documents is raking in cash with ramped up prices that grants patrons the privilege of easy-access sycophancy, a new analysis finds.
Mar-a-Lago has taken in $4.7 million from candidates and political committees since Trump left the White House in 2021 and bumped its initiation fee from $100,000 to $600,000, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
Mar-a-Lago reported $22 million net profits in 2022, with new club members paying about $12 million to join, according to the report.
Fred Rustmann, a former club member and current Trump supporter, told the Times he left because of the new vibe these new patrons brought.
“[The clientele] started to change to people who were kissing his butt all the time,” Rustmann said. “There was a lot of hand-shaking, and applause, and everybody stands up, and wow-wow-wow.”
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Mar-a-Lago’s roughly 500 members aren’t the only people paying through the nose to gain access to the gilded Palm Beach club, according to the report.
Trump’s club reported $11 million in profits from food and beverage operations with customers that include the Republican Party of Palm Beach County, according to the Times.
The local party group reportedly paid $318,000 for is 2023 Lincoln Day dinner, up from $158,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars seven years earlier, the Times reports.
“You can’t ask for a better venue,” said Michael Barnett, chairman of the county G.O.P. until 2023. “We would never consider going anywhere else.”
This influx of big cash stands in stark contrast to Mar-a-Lago’s state of financial affairs in 2012, when records reportedly show it was losing money.
“Its profits began to climb as Mr. Trump entered politics,” the Times reports. “They hit a peak in 2017, as the club added new customers — including the U.S. government, which paid for bedrooms used by Secret Service agents and liquor drunk by Mr. Trump’s aides — without losing its existing ones, like the charities that rented out the club’s ballrooms for fund-raiser galas.”
Visuals in the stunning Times report show a bill for more than $1,000 in liquor charges paid by the U.S. Department of State in 2017.
The money buys Mar-a-Lago attendees and guests front row seats for a parade of Trump adoration and praise.
Speakers and guests call Trump “greatest president” “since Abraham Lincoln,” hand him awards, profess their love and sing him songs, the Times notes.
Guests include conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, white nationalist Laura Loomer, powerful politicians such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), reality television stars and convicted felon Roger Stone.
The Times’ readers professed themselves stunned by the report.
“Mar-A-Lago comes across as more of a carnival rather than an exclusive club,” commented reader Belinda. “And Trump is the carnival barker.”
“This is what Germany in the 30s would have been like if they had social media,” added a Times reader from Secaucus. “God help us if [T]rump wins.”
Just like the other gangsters and autocrats he compared himself to, [Trump] has judges and justices on his payroll, but it’s indirect and untraceable,” Steve Ell commented. “The taxpayer end up responsible for the bill.”
