This is only my opinion, and not the representation of Saintel Daily, LLC.
There has been a lot of concerns with Donald Trump as President, one of which has to do with his relationships with his businesses. He never properly separated himself from said businesses. Which gives people with a lot of money, the opportunity to influence the U.S. government. A new investigation by USA Today pulls back the curtain on who’s buying their way into Trump’s golf courses. They, of course, are using some clever investigative techniques. Namely by using social media to try to figure out who was attending the clubs.
To get into some of these golf clubs, you must pay an initiation fee of $100,000 or more. Which doesn’t include other fees. These clubs are found all over the United States, but the most frequented clubs include those in New Jersey, the suburbs of Washington DC, and of course, his club in Palm Beach, Florida. The reporters then started to compare those names to public websites where people can track their handicaps, like the US Golf Association website.
And it gets better. From there, they were able to check the occupations of people who were members at Trump’s club and began compiling lists of who might have business with the government. What they found was over 4,500 names including dozens of lobbyists, trade group executives, and business executives with lucrative contracts from the federal government. According to USA Today:
“Among Trump club members are top executives of defense contractors, a lobbyist for the South Korean government, a lawyer helping Saudi Arabia fight claims over the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the leader of a pesticide trade group that sought successfully to persuade the Trump administration not to ban an insecticide government scientists linked to health risks.”
There’s more on the list, but when USA Today tried to reach out to some of these people they denied doing business with the President. USA Today also notes that Trump’s golf courses might be his most profitable business. They rake in approximately $600 million per year. From that number, we don’t actually know how much Trump is personally making or who he might owe money to because he will not release his tax return. But that’s another story.
What is interesting is that Trump has kept so many of his dealings secret that even the White House doesn’t acknowledge when he’s playing golf. Instead, he gets outed on social media. Which is how journalists, like those at USA Today, are tracking the President, in order to uncover any potential corruption.
While I don’t agree with anything that Trump does. Literally nothing. I would like to point something out that is beyond ridiculous. And that is the fact that Trump is making the Secret Service pay for their own golf carts when they have to protect him on the golf course. Umm.. does anyone else see a problem with that? Of course, he wants to go golfing so much! He’s already made $60,000 off of the cart rentals alone, this year! This year, friends. And we can expect another 3+ years of this. Well, I won’t get ahead of myself or label that. But come on. I want to say something about having the audacity to do this, but he wouldn’t even understand what that means.
What does this mean for Trump? I don’t know if this helps any of the corruption cases (yes, that’s plural) against him. I do hope that the American people won’t have to put up with this for much longer, but I’m not so sure. With new information emerging every day about the Russian election hack, it’s only a matter of time before we know. But I never thought Trump would be elected President. I remember saying that to a friend. There’s no way that will happen. But it did. Which means I am not even going to take a guess at what will happen with all of this.