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A woman carrying two Chinese passports and a device containing malicious software lied to secret service agents and was briefly admitted to President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago club over the weekend during her visit to Florida, according to reports. federal prosecutors.
Yujing Zhang, 32, approached a secret service agent at a checkpoint outside the Palm Beach club early Saturday afternoon and said she was a member who wanted to use the pool, according to documents. court. She showed the passports as a piece of identity.
The agents say that she was not on the list of members, but a club official thought that Zhang was the daughter of a member. The agents say that when they asked Zhang if the member was his father, she did not answer definitively but they thought it might be a language barrier and admitted it.
Zhang's story changed when she went inside, agents said, telling a receptionist that she was present to attend the evening organized by the Chinese American Association of the United Nations. . No such event was planned and the agents were summoned.
Agent Samuel Ivanovich wrote to the audience that Zhang told him that she was present at the US-American event and that she had come early to get acquainted with the club and take pictures, which still contradicted what she had said at the checkpoint. She showed him an invitation in Chinese that he did not know how to read.
He said that Zhang had been taken away and that she could not be there. Ivanovich stated that she became argumentative, so she was taken to the local secret service office for questioning.
There, he said, it became clear that Zhang speaks and reads English well. He added that Ms. Zhang had said that she had come from Shanghai to attend the non-existent event in Mar-a-Lago, at the invitation of an acquaintance named "Charles", that she only known through a Chinese social media application. Ivanovich then denied telling the checkpoint agents that she was a member who wanted to swim.
Ivanovich said Zhang had four mobile phones, a laptop, an external hard drive and a USB key containing malware. She did not have a swimsuit.
Zhang is accused of making false statements to federal agents and illegally entering a restricted area. She remains in detention pending a hearing next week. His public defender, Robert Adler, declined to comment.
There is no indication that Zhang has ever been near the president. Nor does it indicate that she is related to Li Yang, an original Chinese woman, Republican donor and former owner of a massage parlor in Florida. Yang recently announced after learning that she promised Chinese business leaders that her consulting firm would give them access to Mar-a-Lago, where they could mingle with the president.
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