Membership is booming at President Donald Trump’s private clubs despite record-high fees as business leaders, investors, and people seeking pardons flock to the resorts.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, now charges $1 million to join, up from $500,000 during his first term, The Wall Street Journal reported. The entry fee for the Trump golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, went up from $75,000 to $125,000, and another club near Mar-a-Lago now costs $300,000.
The price hikes don’t seem to be a deterrent, though, as the clubs have become a hub for all sorts of lobbying, the Journal reported.
In addition to cryptocurrency executives pushing for deregulation and business leaders seeking exceptions to the president’s tariffs, advocates for people convicted of crimes are using the clubs to try to get access to the president and request pardons.
In February, several guests at an event at Mar-a-Lago jockeyed to get on Trump’s radar for pardons, according to the Journal. Among them was the Fugees’ Pras Michel, who was convicted in 2024 of conspiracy and corruption.
The rapper’s team has been requesting a pardon since January, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Michel’s reps told the Journal that he was at Mar-a-Lago as a guest and wasn’t there in connection with the pardon.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
But since pardoning about 1,500 January 6 rioters on his first day in office, Trump’s pardons have become highly sought-after. In January, he also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the mastermind behind the Silk Road online black market.
The site generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales of illegal goods and services, including drugs like heroin and cocaine, earning Ulbricht $13 million worth of cryptocurrency in commissions.
The president also pardoned Hunter Biden’s former business associate, Devon Archer, who was convicted of defrauding a Native American tribe as part of a $60 million development bond scheme, and Trevor Milton, a Trump donor who was convicted of fraud.
In March, Trump even announced a posthumous pardon for Pete Rose, who was convicted of falsifying tax records and was banned from Major League Baseball for gambling on games as an active player and manager.
Those pardons have led other high-profile defendants and their supporters to suck up to the president in a bid for clemency. The convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried is reportedly hoping for a pardon, as is Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis police officer convicted of murdering George Floyd.
Joining Trump’s clubs is one way allies of pardon-seekers can try to get close to the president, according to the Journal.
Before Trump’s inauguration in January, the then-president-elect marveled at how many people he could bring to Mar-a-Lago, an unnamed source told the newspaper. When he realized how “hot” the club would be, he decided to return every weekend.
Now, customers are constantly asking lobbyists how they can get into the club—which is near capacity—to try and meet the president.
When he’s there, Trump sits at a table in the middle of the dining room that’s separated from the other diners by a crimson velvet rope hanging on gold stands. Guests typically cannot approach the table, but they clap when Trump comes in, and sometimes he calls them over to the table or climbs over the rope to greet people.
He has also encouraged people to join him as he walks around the patio, according to the Journal.
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