Has Trump left White House for good? POTUS flies to Mar-a-Lago and may stay there through Biden inauguration
On Wednesday, December 23, President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, left the White House for his "Winter White House" - his Palm Beach resort Mar-a-Lago in Florida. While he has made regular December trips to his golf resort in the past years, this time might be different because the outgoing president might not return to his Washington D.C. house before January 20, when he has to vacate the premises for President-elect Joe Biden to take over.
To further the rumors of POTUS planning to stay back in Florida in the final days of his term, Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, told MSNBC that it would not be far-fethed for his former boss to not return back to the White House until the election has been settled.
“I would not be shocked if there is no concession speech at all. My theory is that at Christmas time he goes to Mar-a-Lago. I think he will stay there through the inauguration. I would not be shocked if he will not show up to the inauguration either,” Cohen said.
He added that Trump might decide to hide in Florida because he did not want to be viewed in the public as a loser. “He cannot let the camera look at him and basically pull down the curtain and see the wizard standing beside. He is just a loser and it is killing him and, right now, what is going on in the White House is nothing but finger-pointing.”
Earlier this month we reported that Melania was planning a trip to the golf resort to get an update on renovations at the Trumps' private residence at Mar-a-Lago before the family moves there. A source told CNN that the first lady was to fly to Palm Beach for the weekend and ensure that the house was ready for her and her husband to move in after January 20.
The news came as a number of Trump's neighbors at Mar-a-Lago pushed back and questioned the legality of the first family's plan to live at the lavish resort should Biden occupy the White House on January 21. According to CNN, Melania has put her personal interior decorator in charge of the revamp, supervising fixes to the bathrooms and upgrading the suite where her parents are living.
That said, some neighbors have claimed that Trump is violating a "use agreement" with the Town of Palm Beach that he signed while converting the private estate to a members-only club in 1993. The former real estate mogul, at the time, allegedly agreed that club members — including himself — would not spend more than seven consecutive days and no more than three weeks annually at Mar-a-Lago. However, it appears the POTUS has exceeded that number during his tenure, and a handful of his neighbors in Palm Beach are reportedly against his plans to live at the property permanently.
Reginald Stambaugh, an attorney in West Palm Beach, wrote to town officials on Tuesday about security concerns around a fence surrounding Mar-a-Lago. He also bizarrely claimed Trump living at the resort could lower neighboring property values. “It is the Town Council's responsibility to right these wrongs and restore safety and security to the neighborhood by upholding its Use Agreement," Stambaugh wrote, per The Washington Post. "In order to avoid an embarrassing situation for everyone and to give the President time to make other living arrangements in the area, we trust you will work with his team to remind them of the Use Agreement parameters."
In conclusion, Stambaugh wrote that Palm Beach “has many lovely estates for sale and surely [Donald Trump] can find one which meets his needs.”
In another letter, the DeMoss family, who lives just north of Mar-a-Lago, complained to Palm Beach officials that he couldn't live there full time and urged the town to "avoid an embarrassing situation" for the President. The family also complained about the disruption caused by Trump's trips, in terms of traffic and blocked streets.