As previously discussed, there are\nsignificant ethics challenges surrounding President Trump\u2019s use of his Mar-a-Lago\nestate while in office. Related to this,\nbut having far more serious repercussions, are the national security implications. Fact \u2013 nations all spy. Fact \u2013 our adversaries and enemies go to\ngreat lengths to spy on us and disrupt our institutions. Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea engage\nin ongoing hostile activity against us including intelligence gathering,\ndisrupting our elections, etc. Fact \u2013 Mar-a-Lago\nis an irresistible target for spies, and we do nothing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nWhile Camp David provides a far more convenient, secure, and effective\noption for Presidents to escape the confines of the White House, President Trump\nchooses to travel to Mar-a-Lago, despite the incredible time and expense his\ntravel costs the taxpayers. His travel\ncosts Palm Beach County law enforcement millions of dollars and inconveniences citizens\nand businesses due to forced closures. Why\nwould he do this and do it at an incredible frequency of vacations far greater\nthan any other President? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTrump pockets millions of dollars captured from Secret Service,\nadministration staff, and others required to accompany him when he travels. The U.S. Government pays for hotel rooms, food,\nand other costs at his estate. This is\nall pure profit for the Trump family. Trump has also considerably raised the price of\nmembership at his club, exploiting his status as President to make even more\nmoney. Trump routinely discusses\nofficial business in common areas at the club with little concern as to who may\nbe present and listening. In fact, he often\nmakes a point of discussing official business with club members. In effect, he is selling access to him at Mar-a-Lago\nto anyone willing to pay. This creates\nnot only financial conflicts, but also campaign violations. He is using official trips arguably to conduct\npartisan political activity, appealing directly to supporters in this\nfashion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nHundreds of individuals use the club on a given day, as is their right\nof membership. The Secret Service has no\ncontrol over club patronage or visitation. This creates a huge security nightmare for the\nSecret Service and counter-intelligence officials. Any member or visitor could plant listening\ndevices, capture conversations, intercept communications, or commit other acts\nof espionage directly counter to our national security interests. Anyone, even without any equipment\nwhatsoever, can get near enough to the President and his staff to hear and\ncapture their conversations. President Trump\nand his advisors make things even easier for those with nefarious intent. Trump insists on using his private cell phone\nto conduct official business in flagrant violation of security protocol. His conversations are entirely unprotected\nand easy pickings. This is regrettably\nthe case even for classified and sensitive matters. He has inexplicable complete disdain for his\nparamount responsibility to maintain national security. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nFurther compounding the crisis, his close advisors including Jared Kushner\nand Ivanka Trump also conduct official business on personal, unclassified\nelectronic devices or applications. \nTheir collective atrocious disregard for national security begs the\nquestion as to why they refuse to use protected communications, especially for\nclassified information. The most logical\nanswer, backed up by their history and actions, is their not so veiled intent to\nconceal the existence and content of their discussions and activities from not\njust Congress and the American people, but even from their own intelligence\nofficials and other administration agencies. \nPeople assumed much of what was in the emails Hillary Clinton lost or\ndeleted to be negative. Imagine what is\nin these communications that they so desperately want to conceal!? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nUnfortunately, Russia and China most likely know far more about these\nconversations than do our own officials. \nA Chinese national was just caught trying to infiltrate Mar-a-Lago. She said she was just trying to take a swim\nand was attending an event there. There\nwas no such event that day and she flew halfway around the world to get there,\npossessing 4 cell phones, multiple hard drives, various malware, etc., but no\nswimsuit. This was very clearly a botched\nChinese attempt to probe security and counter-intelligence efforts in\nplace. This was most likely not the\nfirst such attempt and certainly will not be the last, especially with Trump\ninviting Chinese Premiere Xi to Mar-a-Lago. \nChinese intelligence has numerous opportunities to intercept Trump\nAdministration business simply by listening to conversations conducted all over\nthe club\u2019s public areas. Trump could not\nmake it any easier for them or other adversaries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nTrump conducts business with staff as well as foreign dignitaries while\neating in the main dining room, surrounded by random club members eating at\nother tables, many easily able to overhear the discussions. There was an infamous incident where Japanese\nPrime Minister Abe was dining with Trump in the middle of a national security\ncrisis. They watched video, discussed\nhighly classified matters, and handled extremely sensitive materials all at the\ntable. In plain view and easy hearing of\nanyone, and we know foreign intelligence was certainly listening. Various club members in the vicinity heard\neverything, many taking video. This\nunforgivable transgression was only part of an ongoing series of gross violations\nof national security placing our country at great risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nPutting aside the ethics and campaign issues, if Trump insists on\ncontinuing the unprecedented frequency of vacations to Mar-a-Lago and\nconducting official business, he must acquiesce to the security apparatus and\nmake the necessary adjustments to protect intelligence, etc. By refusing to do so, he serves to ratify the\nconclusion that he does not care about national security and that it is more important\nto him to make money and engage in electoral politics. The nation should not tolerate this. Our future and safety depend on it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As previously discussed, there are significant ethics challenges surrounding President Trump\u2019s use of his Mar-a-Lago estate while in office. Related to this, but having far more serious repercussions, are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[53,139,179,198,223],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-china","tag-intelligence","tag-mar-a-lago","tag-national-security","tag-president-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/whoobazoo.com\/thebooth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}