No surprise here

President Donald Trump cheered the New England Patriots and his longtime friend, team owner Robert Kraft, to victory over the Los Angeles Rams on Feb. 3.

Sometime during the party at Trump’s West Palm Beach country club, the president turned in his chair to look over his right shoulder, smiling for a photo with two women at a table behind him.

The woman who snapped the blurry Super Bowl selfie with the president was Li Yang, 45, a self-made entrepreneur from China who started a chain of Asian day spas in South Florida. Over the years, these establishments — many of which operate under the name Tokyo Day Spas — have gained a reputation for offering sexual services.

Nineteen days after Trump and Yang posed together while rooting for the Patriots, authorities would charge Kraft with soliciting prostitution at a spa in Jupiter that Yang had founded more than a decade earlier.

  Miami Herald

He hardly knew her. Right?




Proves nothing.  Thousands of people get selfies from him.  He doesn't know them.  They pay a fee and show up.  Get a picture, pay another fee.  Go home and say, "Look, that's me with the president."  Something to hang on your massage parlor walls.

Anyone “expected to be within close proximity to the president for a planned purpose” at Mar-a-Lago must go through an “enhanced background check” by the Secret Service and other federal agencies, according to a January report by the Government Accountability Office.

No one contacted by the Herald said they recognized Yang.

[...]

In a brief phone interview, Yang said she and her family have never broken the law, but did not answer questions about whether she knew of the allegations that therapists in her spas were offering sex. She added that she was out of the business, would soon be moving to Washington, D.C., and didn’t want any negative press.

Moving to DC? You think she got a position in the White House?

Before the 2016 general election, Yang offered no evidence of political engagement. She hadn’t voted in 10 years, records showed. But she has now become a fixture at Republican political events up and down the East Coast. Her Facebook is covered in photos of herself standing with President Trump, his two sons, Eric and Donald Jr., Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Rick Scott, Sarah Palin, the president’s campaign manager and an assortment of other high-level Republican operators she has met at charity events, political fundraisers and galas, many of which require hefty donations to attend. She sometimes carries a rhinestone encrusted MAGA clutch purse.

[...]

Since 2017, she and her close relatives have contributed more than $42,000 to Trump Victory, a political action committee, and more than $16,000 to the president’s campaign.

Oh yeah. She's in.

In February 2018, Yang was invited by the White House to participate in an event hosted by the Asian American and Pacific Islander Initiative, an advisory commission Trump established by executive order the year before. Later in the year, she attended at least two more AAPI events in Washington D.C., according to her Facebook page.

The White House, the Trump campaign and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment.

Hardly knew her. Wouldn't recognize her if she walked into the room.

Around three years ago, Yang announced that she was pursuing a “new life” in a series of Facebook posts.

Her portfolio broadened to include an investment consulting business, a travel agency and a charity.

Obvious businesses to branch out from sex massage parlors.

I'm sure there's no suggestion of using them for money laundering, either.

The charity, founded in 2015 under the name Overseas International Female Organization, was originally intended to promote cultural exchanges for women, according to its mission statement. A few months later, the name was changed to Women’s Charity Foundation. The foundation once hosted a beauty pageant at the luxury Biltmore Hotel featuring young women brought in by “entertainment companies,” according to one of the event’s co-sponsors, Li Yun, who told the Miami Herald the event was “embarrassing,” “unsuccessful” and “disorganized.” The nonprofit doesn’t appear in a database of active Florida charities.

[...]

At the very end of 2015, Yang began donating small amounts of money to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. In 2016, Yang posted Facebook photos from a Republican women’s event in South Florida with the caption: “The new life will start.”

Around that time, she appears to have pulled her name from the official business records related to Tokyo Day Spas, though her husband still manages at least one of the spas and other companies are now under her parents’ names. Recently, one of her businesses, now listed in her mother’s name, declared bankruptcy, listing more than $150,000 of debt.

When Donald Trump became a serious candidate for president, politics began to dominate her social media presence.

Just a coincidence.

In January 2017, she was in the crowd at Trump’s inauguration in Washington D.C. Later that year, she snapped a photo with Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. In December, she attended her first elite event at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago, a poolside steak lunch.

In September 2018, Yang received a personalized note from the president and first lady. It read: “Thank you for your friendship and dedication to our cause. Leaders like you in Florida are the key to fulfilling our bold agenda to Make America Great Again!”

Yang told the Miami Herald she doesn’t know the president personally, and that she doesn’t work for him, other than to volunteer for campaign events.

I think that counts as working for him.

Yang opened an investment consulting firm in 2017 targeting Chinese businesses hoping to expand to U.S. markets. The website advertises her new political connections, and promises her clients pictures with the president and other high-level members of his administration. Much of its website showcases photographs of her own encounters with the Trump family and other high-profile conservatives.

[...]

In 2018, she attended a Safari Night at Mar-a-Lago hosted by the president’s sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, as well as the White House’s celebration of the Lunar New Year at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. She took photos with Florida’s soon-to-be-governor, Ron DeSantis, at a pro-Israel gala held at Mar-a-Lago, met U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao in Washington D.C., and posed with Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast and former Florida Agriculture Secretary Adam Putnam.

She was photographed with Donald Trump Jr. at a winter Mar-a-Lago gala for Turning Points USA, the conservative college organization, and met Eric Trump last month.

In January, she attended the Sunshine Ball in Washington D.C. hosted by Rick Scott, snagging a photo with the newly elected senator.

She has also posted photos of herself meeting conservative celebrities, including former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, onetime Trump administration adviser Sebastian Gorka, Fox News host Jesse Watters and actor Jon Voight.

Damn. She gets around. The politics Heidi Fleiss.

Brad Stewart, deputy chief of staff for Mast, said the Republican congressman “doesn’t know Yang or remember meeting her” at the Palm Beach GOP Lincoln Day Dinner at Mar-a-Lago on March 16, 2018.

Chris Hartline, Rick Scott’s communications director, said the senator had “met literally hundreds of thousands of people over his eight years as governor. He doesn’t know this woman.”

DeSantis’ press office did not respond to a request for comment.

   

I can almost believe those two idiots don't know who she is.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.