Chinese woman charged after entering Trump’s resort
Washington: A Chinese woman has been arrested and charged with unlawfully entering US President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort with a thumb drive containing “malicious software” and lying to federal agents about her plans, court documents have revealed.
A criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors said that Chinese national Yujing Zhang claimed that she was sent there by a Chinese man whom she had only spoken with via an instant messaging platform to attend an event at the Trump luxury resort in Palm Beach, Florida, CNBC reported.
The woman was asked to try “to speak with a member of the President’s family about Chinese and American foreign economic relations”.
Yujing Zhang gained access to the property last Saturday through an apparent miscommunication with members of Mar-a-Lago security, CNN reported on Wednesday.
Trump was visiting Mar-a-Lago for the weekend, but was at the nearby Trump International Golf Club at the time the woman entered the property.
Secret Service agents at the entrance were told she was there to “go to the pool” and admitted her after she produced two Chinese passports as identification and they believed she was related to a club member also named Zhang, the complaint said.
Yujing passed by at least five Secret Service agents and after arriving in the main reception area of Mar-a-Lago, she claimed to the Secret Service that she was there to attend a “United Nations Friendship Event” between China and the US, the complaint said.
No such event was scheduled to take place on the property, according to an affidavit filed by Secret Service special agent Samuel Ivanovich in a federal court in West Palm Beach, Florida.
The Secret Service agent said in his affidavit that the woman became “verbally aggressive” during her questioning on Saturday and was detained and transported to the Secret Service’s West Palm Beach office.
A lawyer for Yujing couldn’t be reached for comment. She was arrested on Monday and made an initial appearance before a federal magistrate judge in Florida.
The White house declined to comment on the incident.
