The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion which one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them.
-- Machiavelli
Source at Mar-a-Lago tells me last night President Trump was spotted with Sean Hannity and former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik, today at the club the President was with the First Lady and daughter Tiffany.— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) April 1, 2018
Kerik went to prison after pleading guilty to lying on his taxes, a loan application and his disclosures during his abortive nomination for Secretary of Homeland Security.
Philip Rucker and Robert Costa report at WP:
President Trump began the past workweek cutting into steaks at the White House residence on Monday night with his political soldiers, including former advisers Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, strategist Brad Parscale, and son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.In January 2017, CNN reported:
He ended it dining on the gilded patio of his Mar-a-Lago estate with eccentric boxing promoter Don King, who said he vented to the president about the Stormy Daniels saga. “It’s just utterly ridiculous,” King said he told a nodding Trump on Thursday evening as the president began his holiday weekend in Palm Beach.
...
The Daniels saga came up as Trump ate dinner Thursday night at Mar-a-Lago with his wife, Melania, and other family members. King — who is so controversial because of his 1967 manslaughter conviction (he was later pardoned) that he was barred from speaking at the 2016 Republican National Convention — joined the president and griped about the media.
“The top story, number one, is Stormy Daniels,” King said he told Trump. “I told him it’s utterly ridiculous. I just came back from Hamburg, Germany, and they were just laughing at us.”
King said that Trump nodded in approval and told him, “It’s meaningless.”
A new video raises questions about President-elect Donald Trump's relationship with Joseph "Joey No Socks" Cinque, who once reportedly survived a mob hit and was associated with the infamous mob boss John Gotti.
The video shows Trump ringing in the new year on stage with Cinque at his Mar-a-Lago hotel in Palm Beach, Florida. The Secret Service told CNN everyone who attended the party was subject to screening via a metal detector.
