The New York Post e-Edition

INSIDE DON’S ‘WAR A LAGO’ BUNKER

‘Shock,’ ‘worry’ in Palm Beach as ex-prez prepares for arrest

By ISABEL VINCENT and MARA SIEGLER Additional reporting by Beth Landman

Events at Donald Trump’s Palm Beach resort were suspended for the weekend on Friday — as the former president was seen “huddling” with his legal team to hammer out a defense after a New York grand jury voted to indict him Thursday, The Post has learned.

Trump, 76, met with his advisers at Mar-a-Lago where, a source said, they are all “shaken” by the news. The team is preparing for his arraignment before a New York City judge next week, on unknown charges related to hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

“It won’t be business as usual,” the source told The Post regarding events at Mar-a-Lago.

“They expected this, but there is shock now that it’s happened,” said the source. “It’s real now. And they are worried about a surprise.”

Mug-shot fundraising

Lawyers, including Susan Necheles, Joe Tacopina and Chad Seigel, are “chattering about whether there is something else in the indictment that people aren’t expecting,” said the source. “There might be something else that has been overlooked.”

Among the issues Trump’s lawyers are hammering out with Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office is whether the former president’s mug shot will be shown publicly, the source said.

According to the source, Trump wants to use the arrest to drum up political support and donations to his 2024 presidential election campaign. He’s said to be leaning on longtime aides such as Jason Miller, who left his role in February as CEO of GETTR, a conservative socialmedia site, to work as a senior adviser to the former president.

“Trump wants the mug shot out,” the source said. “The funds will start flying in.”

On Thursday, following news of the indictment, a somber-looking Trump was spotted arriving for dinner at the Florida resort with his wife, Melania, 52, at his side.

Photos shared by club members Thursday appeared to show guests standing to applaud the Trumps as they entered, hours after the unprecedented confirmation that he was to be the first former US president to face criminal charges.

Mar-a-Lago is said to be the place he feels most comfortable. His office there, with views of palm trees, features a picture of Mount Rushmore on one wall and a gold-colored plaque commemorating the building of the southern border wall with Mexico on his imposing wooden desk. There’s even what appears in photos to be a small brass statue of himself.

It’s also where he has been playing DJ on Thursday nights, usually from an iPad at his table while having dinner in the dining room. On the menu: 2-pound lobsters and “Mr. Trump’s Wedge Salad.”

“Of course he works the room for votes,” the source said. “It’s always a very friendly room, since Mar-a-Lago is serious Trumpland.”

‘Melania with him’

As for the music, “He loves the ’80s and Broadway tunes — like ‘Phantom of the Opera’ — and Céline Dion, ‘Titanic,’ ” a source told Page Six. “‘YMCA’ is another favorite.”

Other images from Thursday showed Trump and Melania at a large, round table with a group of friends for dinner, with insiders saying he held court and greeted well-wishers.

“Melania has been with him, having dinner with him,” a Mara-Lago insider told The Post on Friday. “Apparently, at first, he was a little nervous and somber [about the indictment], but has become more upbeat and thinks public opinion is on his side and that this will help him win the election.”

But another source told The Post that the former first lady plans to “lay low” and stay out of the media spotlight.

“She will stay in Florida,” the source said. “She wants nothing

to do with this. It’s embarrassing for her. And it keeps going.”

Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, a former senior White House adviser, were also said to be avoiding the issue in recent weeks.

“They want nothing to do with this,” a source told Page Six. “Ivanka lost a lot of friends and her social scenes during his presidency . . . They want to put it in the rearview. They want it behind them.”

Ivanka was quick to issue a statement proclaiming her love, if not support, of her beleaguered father.

“I love my father, and I love my country,” she said in an Instagram Story posted to her page Friday. “Today, I am pained for both.”

Donald Trump Jr. also took to social media to criticize the indictment against his father, noting that none of the Democratic politicians who had been involved with Jeffrey Epstein, such as former President Bill Clinton, were prosecuted for their involvement with the billionaire pedophile who committed suicide in a Manhattan lockup in 2019.

“Not a single person that visited Epstein Island was indicted other than [Ghislaine] Maxwell who seems to be serving a 25 year sentence for sex trafficking minors to no one. But they’ll indict Trump over a campaign finance violation past the statute of limitations that even the feds who spent 7 years trying to jail my father passed on because it’s nonsense?” he tweeted Friday.

‘Everybody energized’

After the initial shock of Thursday’s grand jury vote, Trump’s supporters in Palm Beach rallied around the embattled former leader.

“The situation is very upbeat,” said Franklyn Demarco, a frequent visitor to Mar-a-Lago and owner of Taboo restaurant on Palm Beach’s Worth Ave. “This indictment has energized everybody, and we are rallying around him. Trump was annoyed at first, but as it unfolded and he saw how politically motivated this is, it is making him a martyr, and it will help him in the re-election. Up until now he has been saying they are out to get him and he looked like a bit of a crybaby — but this shows that he wasn’t.”

A prominent Palm Beach socialite who did not want to be identified by name called the situation a “witch hunt.”

“If this were about legal papers, it might be different, but a porn star?” the socialite told The Post on Friday.

“The mood outside Mar-a-Lago among impromptu rallying supporters is defiant and ready to stand with President Trump,” said Gina Loudon, a Mar-a-Lago regular and Trump supporter, referring to demonstrators who chanted support for the president and waved flags outside the resort.

“The radicals on the left have tried and failed to stop him countless times,” she told The Post on Friday. “Now they’ve weaponized the justice system . . . for political purposes — a dark day for American justice.”

THE GATHERING STORMY

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2023-04-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

2023-04-01T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://nypost.pressreader.com/article/281569474993017

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