Even if you're an avid follower of the news, it's hard to keep track of Donald Trump's scandals. The president's singular governing innovation has been to engage in grift so baroque, so galactically expansive, that trying to comprehend it all at once tests the limit of the human mind. Revelations that would have been shocking in the world we all lived in a few years ago - for example, news that the president overruled his staff to insist on security clearances for his fashion designer daughter and her husband - now take up half a news cycle, at most.
Still, it's worth trying to summon whatever is left of our pre-Trump sensibilities and pause to consider the epic sleaze of the unfolding story of Li Yang, also known as Cindy Yang.
Yang, in case you haven't heard of her yet, is a Florida businesswoman whose family owns a chain of massage parlors that, as The Miami Herald put it, "have gained a reputation for offering sexual services." Last month, Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots and a close friend of and donor to Trump, was charged with two counts of soliciting prostitution at a spa Yang founded, Orchids of Asia. (She reportedly sold it around 2013, but online reviews indicate it was known as a place to buy sex before that.) Kraft pleaded not guilty. Authorities have said that Orchids of Asia is part of a major sex trafficking operation.
On Friday, The Herald reported that Yang attended a Super Bowl party at Trump's West Palm Beach country club, where the president was cheering on Kraft's team. It turns out that Yang was something of a regular in MAGA-land, posing for selfies with Trump, his adult sons, Kellyanne Conway and others. According to The Herald, she and her relatives donated $42,000 to a pro-Trump political action committee and more than $16,000 to Trump's campaign. Last February, she was invited to the White House for an event put on by Trump's Asian-American and Pacific Islander Initiative, an advisory commission.
Now, there's nothing new about donors paying for photo ops. But Yang was more than just a hanger-on. Both Mother Jones and The Herald found evidence that Yang, who emigrated from China, ran a business, GY US Investments, selling Chinese executives access to Trump, his family and Republican officials.
News that the owner of a chain of dubious massage parlors was brokering foreign access to the president of the United States should be a big deal. It has the potential to be a sex scandal, an intelligence scandal and a financial scandal all at once.
"There are profound national security implications to this kind of relationship," Jeffrey Prescott, a senior director on the National Security Council under Barack Obama, told me.
Mother Jones has reported that Yang is an officer in local branches of two groups tied to the Chinese government: the Council for the Promotion of the Peaceful Reunification of China and the Chinese Association of Science and Technology. It's hard to know what to make of these connections. Chris Lu, a former deputy secretary of labor who was a co-chairman of the White House Asian-Americans initiative during the Obama administration, cautions against casually imputing dual loyalty to Yang or anyone else.
What's clear, however, is that Trump owns a club where all sorts of characters can purchase access to him. Lu said that when he served in the White House, his rule was that "anyone who comes in contact with the president or is in the room with the president needs to be vetted. Who the hell is vetting people that are going into Mar-a-Lago?"
This goes beyond Mar-a-Lago. On Friday, The Guardian reported on foreign nationals using shell companies to donate to the Trump inaugural committee. Sam Patten, a lobbyist, has pleaded guilty to illegally helping a pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch buy inauguration tickets for $50,000. Under Trump, America's leadership and its secrets are for sale. Maybe that's why the news about Yang hasn't been earthshaking. When it comes to Trump's clubs, she seems like someone who would fit right in.
The New York Times