Somebody flew in to meet Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Trump’s private helicopter this weekend
Donald Trump spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort in Florida, where he ordered a military strike in Syria and dispatched warships to the Korean Peninsula. But he was far from alone. In addition to the guests he officially brought with him on Air Force One on Friday, somebody else also arrived on Trump’s private helicopter on Saturday afternoon.
The Palm Beach Post newspaper was able to document the arrival of the Trump helicopter, but was not able to determine who it was that got off the chopper after it arrived. It landed on a helipad which was recently built on the Mar-a-Lago property, and is ostensibly supposed to be used for Trump to arrive on Marine One. What is known is that Donald Trump had been out playing golf at one of his local courses, and his motorcade arrived back at Mar-a-Lago about an hour before the helicopter arrived.
If it had been a Secret Service protectee, such as a member of the Trump family, they would have arrived a designated transport, not on Trump’s private chopper. And most private helicopters can only travel a few hundred miles at most before running out of fuel, so it seems unlikely that the person arriving on the Trump helicopter was coming from a place like Washington DC or New York City, but rather somewhere closer. It could have been taxiing someone who had arrived on a flight at a local airport, for instance. Some will ask whether it was Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, who has been accused of flying in to meet Trump before. But according to the tracking of Rybolovlev’s private plane (link), he’s been in London for the past week instead.
So unless the Trump administration reveals the identity the guest(s), or it turns out someone else got a better look at the helipad scene than the Palm Beach Post did (link), the identity of Trump’s guest will remain a mystery. But whoever it may have been, it was someone close enough to Trump to merit a ride in his private helicopter. Contribute to Palmer Report
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report