April 15, 2019
U.S.A.
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
Arrest revives security concerns at Trump’s Florida estate
By Jonathan Lemire, Colleen
Long, and Terry Spencer
The Associated Press
ALM BEACH, Fla. — As palm
trees swayed in the ocean breeze,
Yujing Zhang approached Secret
Service agents in the Mar-a-Lago parking
lot.
She said she was going to the swimming
pool at the Palm Beach presidential estate
and presented agents with two Chinese
passports in her name. That raised
suspicions with her screeners, but a call to
the front desk at Mar-a-Lago revealed a
club member with a similar last name and
with that, and a possible language barrier,
reception waved her through.
Not long after, Zhang was arrested
carrying four cellphones, a laptop
computer, an external hard drive, and a
thumb
drive
containing
computer
malware in an incident that is shining a
spotlight on the unique difficulty of
fortifying the oceanside Florida estate of
U.S. President Donald Trump — who was
staying at the club that weekend but
golfing elsewhere at the time.
Zhang’s arrest has revived concerns
about security — particularly cyber
security — at a presidential refuge that
mixes social functions, world diplomacy,
and extraordinary access to the president.
Hundreds of members frequent Mar-a-
Lago and the president’s other private
clubs, which function as working resorts
even when Trump himself visits, creating
a series of challenges that test the Secret
Service.
Federal officials are looking into
whether Zhang was part of a larger effort
to gain access to the president and do
potential harm, combing through her
devices and treating the case as a “credible
threat,” according to a U.S. official who
was not authorized to speak about the
ongoing probe and discussed the matter on
condition of anonymity.
Democratic lawmakers were inquiring
about a possible connection to Li Yang, the
Republican donor and spa owner who
promised Chinese business leaders that
her consulting firm could get them access
to the president at Mar-a-Lago.
Democrats called for an investigation
into security at Mar-a-Lago, and whether
classified information stored there is at
risk from hostile foreign governments.
House Oversight Committee chairman
Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland), said he
would get a briefing from the Secret
Service.
“We want to make sure that the Secret
Service is being the very best that they can
be, and we want to find out more about
exactly what kind of security they had
down there in Florida,” Cummings said. “I
think it’s very, very, very, very important
that the president be protected. And I feel
very strongly about that.”
Trump dismissed the incident, saying it
P
was “just a fluke situation.”
“We have very good control,” he told
reporters.
With the Atlantic Ocean to the east and
Florida’s Intracoastal Waterway to the
west, Mar-a-Lago sits on the Palm Beach
barrier island, a 128-room, 62,500-square-
foot symbol of opulence and power. Long a
Trump favorite since he purchased it from
the foundation of the late socialite
Marjorie Merriweather Post in 1985, the
president travels to the estate every few
weekends during its winter high season,
abandoning Washington’s chill for Florida
sunshine.
“For the president, I think Mar-a-Lago is
not so much a club, but his Xanadu,” said
Chris Ruddy, publisher of Newsmax and a
longtime club member and Trump friend.
“My feeling is he also sees it as [a] place of
destiny and fate because Mrs. Post wanted
it as the winter White House.”
While there, Trump has been known to
crash weddings, pop in on charity events,
and, one time, order air strikes.
He has not been shy about conducting
government business there. It was while
hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping that
Trump, over a chocolate cake dessert,
authorized a missile launch at Syrian
airfields after a chemical attack. On
another occasion, he and Japanese Prime
Minster Shinzo Abe sat on an outdoor
patio, as guests dined nearby, and
reviewed options for responding to a North
Korean ballistic test.
Such
interactions
could
make
Mar-a-Lago
a
tempting
target,
particularly for cyberattacks.
“Mar-a-Lago has not been sufficiently
well-defended against not just physical
attacks, but against counterintelligence
exploits, including digital attacks,” said
David Kris, an authority on foreign
intelligence at Culper Partners consulting
company in Seattle.
Federal agencies spent about $3.4
million per Trump visit, much of it on
security, according to an analysis done by
the U.S. Government Accountability
Office of four 2017 trips. The Secret
Service doesn’t decide who is invited or
welcome at the resort; that responsibility
belongs to the club. Agents do screen
guests outside the perimeter before they’re
screened again inside.
The agency said in a statement that,
with the exception of certain facilities that
are protected permanently, like the White
House, “the practice used at Mar-a-Lago is
no different than that long used at any
other site temporarily visited by the
president.”
But Mar-a-Lago is different from other
presidential retreats.
Unlike Ronald Reagan’s and George W.
Bush’s ranches or George H.W. Bush’s
seaside vacation home in Maine, Mar-a-
Lago is open to members who pay $14,000
annual dues after a $100,000 or $200,000
initiation fee. They expect access to the
facility and want to host their equally
affluent guests — and they are used to
getting their way.
Nabil Erian, a former Marine and gov-
ernment counterintelligence officer, said
guarding Mar-a-Lago is a “nightmare.”
“If this venue was uniquely for the
president, it is easier to manage the
perimeter,” said Erian, an executive at the
security firm CTC International Group in
West Palm Beach. Because Mar-a-Lago is
a club and not just a home, “Frankly, it
increases the risk of something like this
happening.”
Zhang changed her story at the indoor
reception desk, saying she was there a
little early to take photos, but had come to
attend a “United Nations Friendship
Event” between China and the U.S., which
didn’t exist.
Zhang also told agents she was at the
club because her Chinese friend “Charles”
told her to travel from Shanghai, China, to
Palm Beach, saying that if she attended
the event she could speak with a member
of the Republican president’s family about
Chinese and American foreign economic
SECURITY BREACH. In this artist sketch, a Chi-
nese woman, Yujing Zhang, left, listens to a hearing
before federal Magistrate Judge William Matthewman
in West Palm Beach, Florida. Secret Service agents
arrested the 32-year-old woman on March 30 after
they say she gained admission to Mar-a-Lago by
falsely telling a checkpoint she was a member and
was going to swim. (Daniel Pontet via AP)
relations, according to the complaint.
A man named Charles Lee ran the
United Nations Chinese Friendship
Association, and was photographed at
least twice with Yang, the spa owner
whose website advertised access to Trump.
Yang’s attorney said she did not know
Zhang, and merely attended two of the
same events as Lee. But the Miami Herald
reported that Lee recruited people for
Yang’s events. The criminal complaint
made no mention of a possible connection.
Zhang was charged with making false
statements to federal agents and illegally
entering a restricted area. Her public
defender, Robert Adler, declined to
comment.
But general club access doesn’t mean
access to Trump or his guests. When
Trump is at Mar-a-Lago, more screening
and security measures are required.
“I really think it’s overblown. There is a
lot of security, and the staff is wonderful,”
said Toni Holt Kramer, a nine-year
member of the club and founder of the
group The Trumpettes. “Mr. Trump wants
us all to feel right at home there.”
Lemire reported from New York while Long reported
from Washington. Associated Press writers Michael
Balsamo, Mary Clare Jalonick, and Deb Riechmann
in Washington contributed to this report.
q
Is that soy in your Whopper?
Plant-based meat sales rising
By Dee-Ann Durbin
AP Business Writer
rom soy-based sliders to ground
lentil sausages, plant-based meat
substitutes
are
surging
in
popularity. And carnivores — not vegans
or vegetarians — are among the biggest
consumers.
Burger King in early April announced it
will test a plant-based version of its
Whopper in St. Louis. Burger King says its
research shows even meat eaters don’t
want to eat meat every day.
Analysts say growing demand for
healthier food is one reason people are
seeking plant-based meats.
Better technology and marketing also is
fuelling sales. Newer startups like Beyond
Meat and Burger King’s partner Impossi-
ble Foods have won over carnivores with
plant-based products that look and taste
like meat.
Nielsen says annual U.S. sales of
plant-based meats jumped 42 percent
between March 2016 and March 2019 to a
total of nearly $888 million.
F
q
Facebook tweaks tools for
remembering dead friends
WASHINGTON (AP) — Facebook says
it will use artificial intelligence to help find
profiles of people who have died, so their
friends and family members won’t get, for
instance, painful reminders about their
birthday.
The social network said it is also adding
a “tributes” section to accounts that have
been memorialized, that is, designated as
belonging to someone who has died.
Friends and family members will be able to
write posts and share photos in this section
to remember their loved one.
Facebook is also tightening its rules
around who can memorialize an account.
Until now, anyone could do this by sending
the company proof that someone had died,
such as an obituary. Now, it will have to be
a friend or family member.