So, it sounds like tax fraud and breaking zoning laws.
But not really voter fraud.
I assume, of course, that the president is given leeway as to his residence, as he would by nature need to spend the majority of his time in D.C.
I would say that was the case if it was a discretionary matter that was applied after the fact. But from what I’ve read, the law is pretty clear and the agreement Trump signed specifically addresses the situation.
The real issue here should be how Florida has the highest disenfranchisement rate in the country. Over ten percent of the adults in Florida are legally barred from voting, which is shocking.
But as far as I know, the Florida state government is not enforcing the law in Trump’s case.
This whole thing is a non-story.
Here’s the full agreement between Trump and Palm Beach Country, laying out the rules by which Mar-A-Lago is a private club and the conditions under which it is to revert to a “private residence” if it is no longer operated as a private club. I’m sure Trump had some legal BS reason for this agreement, but if you read through it it seems like some standard BS to allow Trump to have his little club and give PBC some concessions for local residents.
It DOES NOT say that Trump will not live at Mar-A-Lago. It DOES NOT say that Trump is not legally allowed to declare Mar-A-Lago as a personal residence.
Everyone in the military declares an out-of-state residence for voting purposes, in some cases not even a residence they live at. It’s just part and parcel of serving your country. When this story first started surfacing I read something about how similar provisions exist for the president and members of congress, who might live in DC but have paper residencies back home.
So Trump has declared that his legal residence is Mar-A-Lago for voter registration purposes. Is that a fraudulent statement? Of course not – not even a little, as that’s actually where he “lives” more often than not when he’s not in the WH. Might Palm Beach Country use his legal voter registration as grounds to file a lawsuit that he violated the 1993 agreement? I can’t see how, having read through said agreement, since it doesn’t say anything about Trump personally living there. And if Trump personally living there were grounds for him having violated that agreement, then he already would have violated it by, you know, living there. Like he has been.
I’m not seeing how it isn’t voter fraud. Florida law says you must supply a valid legal address when you register to vote. Trump supplied a legal address on his registration. He has also signed a legal agreement saying the address he gave is not his legal address. So Trump knew the address he gave on his registration was not a valid legal address.
Trump was knowingly not legally registered to vote in Florida. And he knowingly voted in Florida. How is that not voter fraud?
I bolded the part that isn’t true.
No one hates Trump more than I do, but I don’t see any voter fraud here.
Assuming he agreed not to live there, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t live there for purposes of voter registration. As others have said, violating an agreement doesn’t negate the fact he uses that address as his Florida residence.
Bolding doesn’t work well on this board.
Did you bold the sentence “He has also signed a legal agreement saying the address he gave is not his legal address.”?
If so, I don’t see how that’s in dispute. Are you saying Trump didn’t sign the 1993 agreement? Or are you saying the agreement didn’t establish that Mar-a-Lago is not Trump’s legal address? Because I don’t see how you can argue against either of these things.
I literally linked to what they say, above, and bolded the sentence you need to read. Come on.
Trump signed the 1993 agreement. The agreement doesn’t say that Trump cannot declare Mar-A-Lago to be his legal residence; the agreement doesn’t say Trump isn’t allowed to live at Mar-A-Lago.
I posted a link to the agreement. If you think I’m wrong and that it does establish either of those things, it should be easy to quote.
eta: The agreement is to allow Trump to operate a hotel on property zoned for private residences by using the “it’s a private club” exemption allowed by the County. The agreement outlines the ways in which it will be a private club – by accepting membership fees, etc. There are some other concessions in there for local residents.
That’s it. People are legally allowed to reside at hotels for voting purposes, which includes in Florida as LHOD pointed out above. Trump resides at a hotel (legally a private club, wink) that he owns. End of story.
I’d guess if he committed fraud that the state of Florida would be all over it. And I’d also guess that his lawyers checked into which state he should vote in, which address to use, etc.
Sorry–but I’m not buying into it was fraud just because someone says so on a message board.
Speaking as a registered Florida voter who spends most of his time outside Florida (but with a registered Florida address I reside at when I’m in-state), I’m not seeing the voter fraud here either.
Violation of the 1993 agreement, possibly. If this results in a new tax case against him, well, sucks to be him. But voter fraud? Nope.
This isn’t just something I made up. Here’s the article I read in the Washington Post:
Here’s the relevant sections:
Jack McDonald, a former Palm Beach mayor and councilman who was a charter member of Mar-a-Lago, said in an interview that the town was ever wary of taking on Trump because he is litigious. McDonald had figured Trump was living part of the year at the resort, but said “it’s one of those things that’s been able to slide by” because no one was willing to make a public fuss about it.
As for the provision about club members not using guest rooms more than three times a year, McDonald said, “if that’s what the agreement says, he’s violating the agreement.”
…
In early October, the New York Times reported that he changed his official domicile to Palm Beach, Fla. Trump quickly confirmed that he’d done so via Twitter.
The address he listed was 1100 S. Ocean Blvd. — Mar-a-Lago.
…
Trump’s switch to Florida also tossed a quirky legal puzzle into the mix. Trump — who has traveled to Mar-a-Lago repeatedly as president and has referred to the club as his Winter White House — has said that he voted by mail in Florida’s Republican primary last month. Florida law requires voters to register using their “legal residence” addresses under penalty of perjury.
What would happen to his voting status, some of his adversaries in the dock fight have begun to wonder, if Palm Beach declares that he doesn’t have the legal right to use Mar-a-Lago as his official domicile?
Zeitz called Trump’s possible violation of his agreement with Palm Beach “a substantial and serious potential legal impediment” to the president using Mar-a-Lago as his voter-registration address and official domicile.
In Florida, a state with a long, florid history of voting controversies, a person needs to cross multiple hurdles to legally register at a particular address, according to Ronald Meyer, a Florida lawyer and election law expert, who spoke about the law in general rather than the specifics of Trump’s situation.
First, voters have to state an intention to reside somewhere, Meyer said. But that’s not enough. They also have to demonstrate that the address they’re using for their voter registration is legitimate by taking concrete steps such as buying or renting the home at that address, registering a vehicle there, or using the address to apply for a driver’s license or for tax purposes.
^^Thanks. And I didn’t to imply that you were making it up.
But, I do think Trump and his lawyers would have been smart enough to know about the voting rules, especially since this story came out in May. I would have thought (but don’t know for sure) that they would have looked into it or something, or the state of Florida would have.
I guess we’ll find out.
But even the provision about members not using guest suites more than 3 times a year doesn’t matter.
- He’s not a member, he’s the owner,
- When he’s there he doesn’t stay in one of the 10 guest suites.
Boom! Problem solved. Again, the agreement doesn’t say anything about Trump not being allowed to live there.
Same article:
Trump, drawing from his well-worn smash-mouth playbook, sued the town. At the same time, he and his attorney were birthing yet another clever plan: He’d convert his personal residence into a private club.
During lengthy talks with the council, Trump’s attorney, Paul Rampell, addressed a question on a lot of minds in those days: Would Trump live at the club?
“The answer is no,” Rampell said, according to a summary transcript of a 1993 council meeting, “except that he will be a member of the Club and would be entitled to use its guest rooms.”
In August 1993, Trump got his club, signing an extraordinarily detailed document called a “use agreement” that governs to this day how Mar-a-Lago can be used. The document makes clear that Mar-a-Lago would no longer be a single-family residence and was now a private club.
The deal he struck made it clear that no one could live permanently at the property. It stated that the guest suites could be used only by members for a maximum of three times a year for no longer than seven days at a time, and that those seven-day stays couldn’t be strung together consecutively.
You and the OP are both wrong. The agreement clearly limits the use of guest suites (and Trump’s house on the property is a guest suite under the development plan approved by the town). But the fact that Trump promised not to reside there has nothing to do with his voter registration; he is residing there, and all that means is that the Town of Palm Beach has standing to rescind the agreement. Trump probably could not declare his residence to be one that would violate criminal law (say, if he were enjoined from going within 1000 feet of a school because he was a sex offender). But there is no reason he can’t declare his residence in violation of a purely civil agreement.
I’ll accept that. While the agreement doesn’t mention anything about Trump being a member and/or his private house being counted as a guest suite, I didn’t look up any of the supporting documentation so I’ll concede to that.
It still seems evident to me that the point of the agreement is to prevent the property from being operated as a hotel (e.g., a full blown business in a residential zone), not to prevent the property from becoming a private residence. But whatever.
Trump, his lawyers, and “smart” don’t often come up in the same sentence. I’m sure Rudy signed off on the plan, though.
I’m of the opinion that it probably isn’t voter fraud, but that Palm Beach has reason to void the agreement, which would be hilarious.
I’m not a lawyer but this seems questionable to me. The fact that Trump is factually residing there doesn’t mean he is legally residing there. See my example of somebody living in a storage unit.
So here are the issues as I see them:
Is the agreement legally binding in government matters? I feel it is. One of the parties to the agreement was the town council. And the agreement was used as the settlement in a court case. So it has official recognition beyond being just an agreement between two private parties.
Did Trump agree in 1993 that he would not live at Mar-a-Lago? The newspaper article says Paul Rampell, Trump’s attorney, said Trump was agreeing to this.
Was Trump’s 1993 agreement not to live at Mar-a-Lago legally binding or was it just a voluntary decision on his part? The article seems to be saying it was legally binding: “The deal he struck made it clear that no one could live permanently at the property.”
Does living as a guest at Mar-a-Lago for three weeks a year legally qualify the location as a place Trump can declare as his legal residence? I don’t know Florida law well enough to answer this authoritatively. But the article says they asked Ronald Meyer, who is an expert on this subject and he said that position was questionable.
If a person is living at a location in a manner that is in violation of a legally recognized agreement, does this mean the person is living in that location illegally? I feel it does. I don’t see how you can argue that you are legally breaking the terms of a legal agreement. Civil law is still law. You’re doing something illegal by breaking a civil law just as you would be by breaking a criminal law.
If a person is living in a location illegally, can they claim the location as their legal residence? Again, I feel that illegality negates any possibility of claiming legality. You can’t claim you are legally doing something that’s illegal.
Yes. Of course. If my mother-in-law is living in my garage, and my town doesn’t allow that, she can still register to vote at my address. She can get mail delivered. She can get a drivers license with that address on it. And the town can fine us and make her move out. No voter fraud though.