Trump’s Mara-a-Lago Club Increase Initiation Fee by $100,000 – And Trump Appoints An Ethics Team

It’s a Joke Son, It’s a Joke

When Donnie ran for President his winter home which is a country club called Mar-a-Lago , or as we refer to it, ‘Crassness ‘R Us’ became newsworthy.  So after the election the club doubled its initiation fee to $200,000, a $100,000 increase.

“. . . . Bernd Lembcke, the managing director of the 118-room club in Palm Beach, Fla. — which Mr. Trump recently labeled the Winter White House — confirmed on Wednesday that the price of new memberships had increased to $200,000 from $100,000, and that applications had surged since Mr. Trump won the election in November.”

Who can eat at the club after seeing this?  NYTimes photo

So Trumpie is going to cash in to the tune of a million or two as one of his first acts as President.  No surprise there, the only surprise being that the existing membership didn’t run as fast as they could away, and of course this is just the first of many great business decisions by the Exploiter of the Presidency in Chief. 

But what struck everyone was the fact that he has an ethic team.  Really, which is a good thing until we look at who populates it.

“Mr. Lembcke’s acknowledgment came hours after the Trump Organization announced that it had named Bobby Burchfield, a longtime Republican Party lawyer and corporate litigator, as an “independent ethics adviser.” The Trump Organization pointed to the move as a sign of its commitment to addressing questions about potential conflicts of interest.”

Okay everyone stop laughing about a longtime Republican lawyer being an independent anything.  Because there is also this.

“The White House also announced on Wednesday that it had appointed a legal team to handle compliance and ethics matters. The team will serve under Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, and consists of four lawyers, including Stefan C. Passantino, who has specialized in campaign compliance and election law issues for clients like Newt Gingrich and J. Dennis Hastert, both former Republican House speakers.” 

See in Trump world their concept of independence is an ‘alternative fact’, not the real concept the rest of us have.  And of course both Gingrich and Hastert were leaders in unethics.