RNC moves event to Mar-a-Lago for Trump speech after cease-and-desist letter

Sources tell The Washington Post that an event at the Republican National Committee’s upcoming spring donor retreat will be held at Mar-a-Lago and attended by Donald Trump, who will also give a speech.

The RNC’s decision is oddly timed; Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to the RNC on Friday telling them to end all use of Trump’s name and image for fundraising purposes. Moving the event to Mar-a-Lago could be a strategic decision to get the RNC back in Trump’s good graces.

The party will pay Mar-a-Lago to host the event, provide the facilities, and provide food for the event.

The weekend retreat in early April for the party’s most influential donors will be at a luxury hotel in Palm Beach, as in past years. But the RNC has decided to move the Saturday evening portion of the schedule to the former president’s private club to accommodate Trump and guests who would like to visit the site, according to officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the plans.
The Washington Post

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel spoke to Trump over the weekend, explaining that the RNC intends to continue using his likeness and arguing that doing so helps Trump, too.

Later reporting from The New York Times claims that the decision to move the event to Mar-a-Lago was made before the cease-and-desist request and that Trump told McDaniel he doesn’t intend to get in the way of GOP fundraising.

However, that report is co-authored by Maggie Haberman, a longtime friend of and unofficial consultant for the Trumps and Roger Stone. It’s hard to tell if her reporting is the truth or not when she writes an article that paints Trump in a more positive light than stories from other reporters. She has been accused by people close to the Trump administration of letting Jared Kushner feed her positive stories. Others have pointed out that she is at all times hesitant, to say the least, about writing that Donald Trump is lying when he lies.

Haberman’s mother was an official PR consultant for Donald Trump at Rubenstein Associates, a firm whose clients have included Jared and Charles Kushner, Rupert Murdoch, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell’s father Robert Maxwell, Rudy Giuliani, and Adnan Khashoggi.

In Haberman’s defense, she has shown before that her alliance with Donald Trump can be shaken… especially if it’s to defend Roger Stone.