President Trump said Wednesday that he was unconcerned about possible Chinese espionage at his Mar-a-Lago resort after a Chinese woman was arrested there with four cellphones and a thumb drive loaded with malware.
“I saw the story,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “I had a brief meeting, and they gave me a little bit of information. No, I’m not concerned at all. I have — we have very good control.”
Trump said he believed the incident was “just a fluke situation” and praised a front-desk employee at his Palm Beach, Fla., getaway for spotting the suspect, saying “that particular woman did a very, very good job.”
Yujing Zhang, the suspect, was arrested by the U.S. Secret Service on Saturday and charged with making a false statement to a federal officer and entering restricted property. Her arrest was first reported Wednesday.
“The end result, it was good,” Trump said. “I think probably we will see where she’s from, who she is, but the result is, they were able to get her. And she’s now suffering the consequences of whatever it is she had in mind.”
Zhang reportedly had sought to attend an event at the club advertised by Li “Cindy” Yang, a local massage parlor owner.
Yang posed for a photo with Trump at a Super Bowl party in February and is the subject of a federal investigation involving selling access to Trump, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
Trump told reporters at the White House that he doesn’t know Yang.
“I take a lot of pictures with people that look like a selfie or something, and I do that a lot. I do that, sometimes depending on where I am or what I’m doing, hundreds of times a day,” Trump said.
