Wednesday, February 01, 2017

His man in Dublin

Irish Times --

Three paintings hang on the wall behind the desk of Brian Burns, the business executive, attorney, philanthropist and, he hopes, President Donald Trump’s soon-to-be-appointed ambassador to Ireland. ... It was in his capacity as negotiator that Burns first met Trump about “eight or 10 years ago”. He does not want to divulge details of a dispute involving the Manhattan billionaire. He would only say Trump had a legal problem in Florida where he owned his luxury Mar-A-Lago Club not far from Burns’s office in Palm Beach, and that he was asked to play peacemaker. Burns helped the problem go away and the two men have remained friends ever since, meeting regularly at the club.

The timeline and context suggests that the specific legal problem (among many) was a row that Trump had with the length of the flagpole at the Mar-a-Lago estate, which Trump resolved by donating the size of a fine he had incurred to the West Palm Beach Fisher House veteran's charity -- a donation that turns out was made from the Trump Foundation rather than Trump's own funds. 

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