Murder at Mar-a-Lago
by John Haymaker with Hadji Doria

Forget court filings. Ditch the appeals. All team Trump needs is a sexy new drop-dead headline to dominate the news cycle. Just get someone to whisper ‘Murder at Mar-a-Lago’ in Trump’s ear and this could be “unpresidented” tabloid gold. The J6 insurrection was just a warm up, the docs probe just dull potatoes. Be honest, did you ever actually read the affidavit? Even the redacted version seemed kind of longish. “Murder at Mar-a-Lago” would become the national obsession. No other story could hold interest. One whiff of homicide at Trump’s door and Jack Smith is so yesterday.
With the FBI squeezing team Trump by the nuts, it’s never been if but when somebody in Trump’s orb went off kilter. Who in Trump’s inner circle hasn’t been tempted? Honestly, we all expect nothing less from Trump — who always manages to give us a bigger scandal than the last. In due course, he has always been bound to go apeshit sooner than later — as if Trump’s inner orangutan wouldn’t outgrow its host’s thin skin at some point.
Picture it — 5 a.m. Police responded to reports of shouting and a shooting. Trump answers the door dapper as a mafia don, his finely feathered locks permed and mussed — but a trail of blood follows the soles of his shoes as he opens the door. On that probable cause, police enter. A body appears to have been dragged across the tiled floor and removed from the scene. Of course, Trump will deny it — he’ll totally deny it.
For anyone thinking this could only be one of Roger Stone’s dirty tricks, they couldn’t be more right — and wrong. Trump himself might have mentioned staging a murder to distract the DOJ months ago but forgot — er, until Stone planted a post-it note on a classified doc squirreled away in Ivana’s coffin. Put wise, Trump could only grin his most foolish grin ever and reiterate what a genius he is — and set the whole charade in motion. After all, stage it and fake it is the essence of the Trump brand.
The facts would be totally irrelevant. Speculation and amateur sleuthing could well overtake facts on the ground faster than Josh Hawley can dodge an insurrection that he helped provoke. And the beauty of it is, it doesn’t matter who got murdered, if anyone, or why.
Like Trump’s always said, he could murder someone on 5th Avenue and nobody would care. So true — it just sounds like an average day in NYC. But murder at Mar-a-Lago? Baby, this gives Trump street creds as one kingpin who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty. And no worries about the bloody mess — he’s about as likely to lose voters as he is to lose weight.
But frankly, police might never find a smoking gun. Not in this setup. In fact, there doesn’t even have to be a gun — a shove down the stairs, strangulation, a blunt object — it’s all good when the murder is at Mar-a-Lago. The fact that police don’t have a body or weapon just adds ten fold to the mystery and intrigue. Indictment should prove as elusive as truth off Trump’s lips.
But this case would never go cold: amateur sleuths can carry on solving the case time and time again, book after book, once and for all. And readers giddy for new angles will continue getting duped.
Best of all, Murder at Mar-a-Lago is a sure fire money maker for Trump. He could finally be able to afford his lifestyle with his own money — not sensationalizing that laundry list of political witch hunts to grift off his base. If business ventures have never been Trump’s strong suit anyway, politics certainly turned into a losing proposition for Trump.
Imagine the production companies suddenly clamoring for access to the property to film documentaries, interviews, movies. Murder at Mar-a-Lago would be the outsized production worthy of the Trump brand. Given this level of tragedy there would surely be an opera — with the Donald signing bass and Jared singing higher than a canary. This just has the Trump brand all over it. Suddenly Mar-a-Lago is like the biggest Trump Tower ever and Mar-a-Lago resale value would soar so high even a Russian oligarch couldn’t afford it.
That said, the only danger here is that anytime Trump stands to profit he goes large with theatrics. If everyone else on team Trump was thinking small, Trump would be convinced his approach is the true stroke of genius. Heads up, someone may need to run interference before he reassembles some Rude Boys and incites a melee shooting spree, ever after known as Shoot out at Mar-a-Lago.
No worries. No one need get hurt — but that fact absolutely won’t matter once the photo of bullet holes in the Mar-a-Lago facade round the internet — with a few well-placed and suggestive bloodred paintball splatters. That would absolutely be the headline of the century — even transform the American political landscape. Trump need only smile into the all the adoring news cameras that descend and introduce his new campaign slogan, Make American Westerns Great Again (MAWGA). (Yeah, yeah, we all know that Mar-a-Lago is totally east coast, but hey, Donald can whip out a Sharpie and your head will spin worlds as he redraws the map to rebrand his property as the West Indies.)
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Copyright John Haymaker and Hadji Doria All Rights Reserved