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You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: A False Trail (Probably)

Late Night Open Thread: A False Trail (Probably)

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Cocaine wishes, cowboy caviar dreams…

Naaah…. Never say never, when it comes to TFG criming, but let’s be real: TFG would be the last person deluded enough to trust his namesake in even a legal fiction concerning his real estate ‘crown jewel’ / moneyspinner. Palm Beach news station WPTV, “Zillow amends ‘incorrect’ listing amid Mar-a-Lago sale rumors”:

A Friday morning listing on Zillow showed that Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was sold on Aug. 4 for $422 million. However, Zillow has since called the listing “incorrect,” and the property is now listed as “off the market.”…

The 58-bedroom, 33-bathroom estate is in the spotlight as rumors swirl that the property was sold or transferred to a company owned by Trump’s son, Donald Jr.

The rumor was fueled by a Friday morning post on Zillow showing a $422 million sale, which has since been deleted.

“The timing, I think, is something that struck all of us,” Jason Weisser, a former prosecutor and current partner at Schuler Weisser Zoeller Overbeck & Baxter, said. “You know, just days before the indictment in Georgia, here you are transferring your Mar-a-Lago property and you’re transferring it to a company owned by your son.”…

“If he feels that there’s a possibility or probability that he might owe a judgment to a creditor, this would be a way that he could move assets so that they couldn’t get that from him,” Weisser said.

Palm Beach County property records show no sale since 1995 when Trump converted the property to a club. That company, Mar-a-Lago Club, Inc., does appear to be operated by Donald Jr., according to records on Sunbiz.

Palm Beach County’s property records website does note that sales are not posted until one to three weeks after the closing date…

Wouldn’t come as a total surprise if the Dark Lard, or one of his overambitious minions, had floated the idea of such a transfer, of course. Pretty sure it won’t be in the family once the creditors, and future political litigants, get their time in court!

Reader Interactions

43Comments

  7. 7.

    Kent

    Well, if Trump has a fresh $422 million from selling Mar a Lago then he can certainly settle all the civil claims against him!

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    Dark Lard (excellent name for him, AL!) might actually be 215 pounds — were he 5’7″ or 5’8″. But above 6 feet? Even Drunk Liar Ronny Jackson wouldn’t have the balls to try that. He’s gotta be upwards of 260.

  9. 9.

    Anne Laurie

    @Dangerman: This is because Melania is about to serve him with divorce papers.

    I’d assume she’ll do her best to stall until her little anchor baby Barron turns 18 (next March).

    Being the aging warlord’s last legal wife is no sinecure, especially when the adult children of earlier liaisons all have their own eyes on the throne!

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @Alison Rose:

    Yeah, that seems insanely small???

    Not the only thing about him that is. Or so we’ve been told.

    But I’m guessing he tried to input “five bazillion square feet” into the Zillow profile, and Zillow “corrected” it to what we see.

  11. 11.

    wjca

    If the sale (assuming it happened) was intended to stiff Melania in a divorce proceding, or to protect assets when filing for bankruptcy, wouldn’t he sell it for an exceptionally low price?  So as to leave as little as possible to others.

    Tends to suggest that there was some money laundering that just couldn’t be put off.

  12. 12.

    lgerard

    The origin story of Mar a Lago is an interesting one.  trump bought the property because he thought he could subdivide it and make a profit.  The Palm Beach zoning board turned him down repeatedly, as they had with every one else who had proposed that concept.

    A local attorney approached him with the idea that a private club, particularly one that did not have the antiquated religious and racial exclusions and catered to a younger crowd could be successful.  trump simply could not understand this and it wasn’t until he realized he was stuck with a white elephant and it was explained to him over and over that this was a way out, did he move forward with the private club.

    Of course, trump and the attorney are no longer friends

  16. 16.

    TriassicSands

    @prostratedragon:

    Wikipedia lists the property as 5,810 square meters or 62,500 sq.ft.

    Also from Wikipedia:

    In 2018, Forbes estimated the value of the estate at around $160 million, claiming it had appreciated since Trump’s purchase. In a 2022 lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, it was alleged that Trump inflated the value of Mar-a-Lago to $739 million, when the property should actually be valued at $75 million.

    And this:

    Donald Trump learned about the estate after unsuccessfully trying to purchase and combine two apartments in Palm Beach for his family. He offered the Post family $15 million for it, but they rejected it. Trump purchased the land between Mar-a-Lago and the ocean from Jack C. Massey, the former owner of KFC, for $2 million, stating he intended to build a home that would block Mar-a-Lago’s beach view. The threat caused interest in the property to decline. [Emphasis mine. — TS]

    Trump, always a stand up guy.

  18. 18.

    patrick II

    If Trump was trying to put assets where they would be difficult to retrieve it would probably be the other way around.  When you go bankrupt in Florida you get to keep your house and the equity you have in it.  Although it is too late for a move like that anyhow.

  19. 19.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @patrick II: IIRC there’s some local law that prevents him from making MAL his primary residence– though it seems to be. He owns two houses in Palm Beach, but no one applauds when he walks in to those dining rooms

  20. 20.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    I don’t like wasting my time on this because obviously it’s a distraction from the real important stuff but Tucker Carlson is 6’1″. If you see the clips of the two walking in the Wednesday interview they look the same height. I am assuming Tucker doesn’t do the stupid lifts stuff like TFG does so my guess is that TFG is more like 6′. Also Obama is 6’2″ and TFG either looks the same as Obama or a shade taller(not a whole lot of Obama/TFG standing pics.) Again you have the lifts and it’s 7 years later now and people usually shrink as they get older so I figure he’s 6″.

  23. 23.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @TriassicSands: according to a mostly sympathetic biography of Melanie that came out a couple of years ago, that six months she stayed in NYC before moving to DC was about renegotiating that pre-nup, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she either has or will done it again for this new round of campaigning. Not that the MAGAts ever seem to be looking for her at those Ninety Minute Hates

    I think Marla Maples got a $1M and a house

  28. 28.

    Baud

    Biden and Harris should find some way to tell their world their both 6’3″ 215 lbs.

    That would be worth some yucks.

  29. 29.

    raven

    It was a pretty day offshore yesterday. Unfortunately we only landed one nice wahoo. It was my nephews first trip and he got it so that was good.

  32. 32.

    prostratedragon

    @smike:  Yeah, I finally checked the wiki artcle on the place; 62,000 sq.ft. So either a straightup typo, or a conflation of his apartment there and the bajillions of beds and baths in the whole place.

  34. 34.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    If you sell a home you trigger a capital gains tax.  Here, 422 million less the amt he paid for it (10 million) multiplied by 20% would by 82 million.

    Now he can offset that if he has a lot of losses and we have seen his past income taxes do you have a lot of losses.  But the transaction can’t be a sham to avoid estate taxes and there’s no way junior has $422,000,000 lying around unless he finances through some foreign bank cosigned by a Russian oligarch on Putin’s say so.

    That raises the question why does he need a cash injection.  He can raise money for his campaign and legal defense through the suckers and his outstanding loans with Deutsche Bank and the Bank of China can be rolled over a myriad of different ways, which leads me to think the story is in error.

  37. 37.

    Jertian

    Is it possible that the sale of MAL was done by having the $422 million be paid over time?  I’ve heard there are tax dodges that work like this by selling property to a relative with installment plans depending on if the recipient defaults or not.

  38. 38.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @wjca:

    Tends to suggest that there was some money laundering that just couldn’t be put off.

    I see the PAC that pays his legal bills is reporting donations of $422 million this quarter, all in amounts of $9999.99.

  39. 39.

    catclub

    @wjca: ​
     Tends to suggest that there was some money laundering that just couldn’t be put off.

    Yeah, if there is that $422M around, Donny got it from either Russians or the Saudis.

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