A Chinese national has been arrested after allegedly trying to enter Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida club, while claiming to have documents that tie China to the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump.
Police said Zijie Li, of El Monte, California, attempted to get into the property on multiple occasions between July 19 and July 30, Fox News reported:
Li’s first of several attempts to reach Mar-a-Lago was… July 19, when Li reportedly drove up to the estate’s main entrance on South Ocean Boulevard in a gray Toyota Prius and told Secret Service agents that he had documents showing China was involved in the attempted assassination, according to an arrest report obtained by the Palm Beach Post.
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Agents then reportedly told Li that he was trespassing and was not allowed on the property and the Palm Beach Police Department issued him a written warning, the report said. Police also told Li that he was not permitted to return to Mar-a-Lago, and if he did, he would be arrested.
Li’s next visit to Palm Beach was July 22, where footage from town security cameras showed that he drove east and then west again over the Royal Park Bridge twice, first in the morning and then in the afternoon, the arrest report said.
While Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago on Li’s July 19 visit, he was there when the man was seen driving on the Royal Park Bridge, which connects the club and other locations on the beach to the mainland.
On July 30, Li was seen once again while driving toward the club’s security checkpoint, leading to another police confrontation where an officer noticed that Mar-a-Lago’s address was loaded into the alleged trespasser’s GPS directions, the arrest report stated.
The police let Li go and he left town, but Fox News reported that it was “less than an hour later when his car was spotted south of Mar-a-Lago on South Ocean Boulevard.”
Palm Beach Police and Secret Service agents again told him not to return to Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Li was finally arrested the next day, Wednesday, at an intersection near the club after he again returned, according to the outlet.
Trump was not on the property at the time.
Li is now facing a misdemeanor trespassing charge, the Palm Beach Post reported.
Jail records obtained by the outlet revealed that Li’s arrest was the first one related to security at Mar-a-Lago since the Butler, Pennsylvania Trump rally shooting, when 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks fired multiple shots at the former president and injured his ear, two of his supporters, and killed another.
Li’s next court appearance is scheduled to take place on Monday. He was still in the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday morning on a $3,000 bond, court records viewed by the local publication showed.
The contents of the mysterious documents the alleged trespasser claimed to have not been publicly released.
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