While the prosecution at the Senate impeachment trial was showing a video clip of MAGA supporters storming the Capitol, a Trump lawyer in another matter was in a Zoom meeting with the Palm Beach Town Council, screen-sharing a document that had two highlighted lines.
“TITLE: President
NAME: Trump, Donald J”
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But the document was dated Jan. 25, 2021, and had nothing to do with the four years in the White House that had ended with attempted insurrection.
“He’s now president of the Mar-a-Lago Club,” the lawyer, John Manion, told the Palm Beach council. “You all would remember he put everything in a trust while he was president of the United States. But he’s now president of the club.”
Manion, who was notably more focused and articulate than Trump's lead lawyer nearly 1,000 miles north in Washington, D.C., appeared Tuesday afternoon for a preliminary “informational” hearing because unnamed residents around Mar-a-Lago contend that Trump should be barred from residing at the club. They argue that when he formed it back in 1993, Trump guaranteed that neither he nor anybody else would reside there more than seven days at a time for a total of 21 days a year. They cite a reply a previous Trump attorney, Paul Rampell, gave when asked if his client was going to live there: “No, except that he will be a member of the club and therefore will be entitled to the use of guest rooms.”
The current attorney, Manion, noted to the council on Tuesday that the town’s zoning code allows for “bona fide employees” to reside at the club. And the code explicitly states that owners and officers are considered employees.
“He oversees the property,” Manion, who has represented Trump for 22 years, told the council. “He evaluates the performance of the employees. He’s constantly doing that. He suggests improvements of the operation of the club. He does that constantly. You can ask the members.”
Manion was not done.
“He reviews the club's financials,” Manion continued. “He attends events at the club and welcomes people that are guests. He welcomes and thanks everybody that’s attending. He greets members and their guests as he sees them. He recommends events to be held at the club. He suggests candidates for membership.”
Manion added, “This guy wanders the property like the mayor of Mar-a-Lago, if you will. He’s always present. He’s ever present.”
A better fit as an uber-employee at the club than he ever was as commander-in-chief at the White House.
In a very un-Trumpian turn, Manion voiced some empathy for those who lived around Mar-a-Lago during Trump’s time as president of the United States. Roads were blocked off and there were barricades at every turn.
“Secret Service amounted to more than 100 people,” Manion said. “There were sheriff’s officers everywhere.”
But now that Trump is back to being president of Mar-a-Lago, the barriers had been removed. The Secret Service contingent had been reduced to roughly 10 as of a week ago Sunday.
“Things have changed, and I think it’s going to stay that way,” Manion said.
And he said Trump is set on staying.
“He loves it there,” Manion said. “He’s got a right to live there.”
The attorney for Trump’s unhappy neighbors, Reginald Stambaugh, spoke briefly. He then invited Philip Johnston of an organization called Preserve Palm Beach to take over.
“Our group feels that Palm Beach is a genteel town and should remain so,” Johnston said. “The group is concerned that the recently announced use of Mar-a-Lago as Mr. Trump’s residence and now as the office of the former president threatens to make Mar-a-Lago into a permanent beacon for his more rabid, lawless supporters.”
Only two members of the public signed up to address the council. One was a Palm Beach attorney named Simon Taylor who contended that somebody who is “running the wing of a political party and holding superspreader events... is not a bona fide employee” of a club supposedly devoted to dining, sunning, swimming, and playing tennis.
The other was a member of Mar-a-Lago named Mark Sanderson, who declared that it would be “unconscionable” to deny a former president the right to reside on a property he has long owned.
The town’s attorney, Skip Randolph, endorsed Manion’s legal analysis.
“I have been advised that former President Trump is indeed an employee under this definition,” Randolph told the council.
At the hearing’s end, the council president, Maggie Zeidman, referred to the Mar-a-Lago document that Manion had screen-shared.
“It appears to me that Mr. Trump, as evidenced by what Mr. Manion has shown to us, has met the criteria for a bona fide employee,” she said. “It seems there is nothing therefore that would prohibit him from living in the owner’s suite at Mar-a-Lago.”
Whatever happens in the impeachment trial, Trump seems all but certain to prevail when the council meets to decide the matter, likely in April.
His neighbors will be able to console themselves that at least he is no longer in the White House.
