this is Facing South
Florida with Jim DeFede.
Good morning, I'm Jim DeFede
and welcome to
Facing South Florida.
Now one of the things I like
about the format of this show
is that it gives
me an opportunity
to take a closer look
at issues in the news.
For the past few months,
we've been exploring
working conditions
at Miami International Airport
in an ongoing series we call
MIA's Forgotten Workers.
We've reported on
cabin cleaners,
wheelchair operators,
and workers inside
the airport's restaurants.
But later in the show,
we'll look at the 1,200 workers
who load the planes with food
and snacks and beverages.
I think you'll be
surprised at what we found.
But first, a story that almost
seems too bizarre to be real.
It starts with the owner
of the New England Patriots
visiting the Orchids of
Asia Day Spa in Jupiter.
Robert Kraft, allegedly
went looking for something,
oh, off the menu,
something elicit.
And was subsequently arrested.
That case has fallen apart,
but it led us on a journey
to the former owner
of the Day Spa, Cindy Yang.
And that's when the
story took a turn,
that landed inside Mar-a-Lago.
Turns out, Cindy Yang was
a major Republican donor
who is now at the center of
an ever growing investigation
into possible campaign
finance violations,
influence peddling, and
even potentially espionage.
Most of this information
has been uncovered
by the Miami Herald,
and two of the reporters
who have been doing
a phenomenal job
are with us this morning.
Sarah Blaskey, started
digging into this story
from its earliest stage.
She's been with The Herald
for a little more than a year,
and Jay Weaver is a long
time, very old and senior,
federal court reporter
for the paper,
who I know well and,
we used to work with.
Welcome to both of you.
You don't mind I call
you old and senior?
No, it's alright.
All right, so, let's
start with this story.
So last February, Robert
Kraft, the police announced
this major arrest against
a number of individuals
and Robert Kraft is one of them,
billionaire owner
of the Patriots.
The media goes nuts
with the sensationalism
of a billionaire going to
a little place in Jupiter,
and the prosecutors run wild
with the story about how this
is part of an international
sex trafficking ring.
But what really was lying
underneath the story
was something that
you found, Sarah.
You started digging a
little bit deeper into it,
and it really wasn't
the sex trafficking
or the purian
interest of the owner
of the New England Patriots,
but it was the former
owner of the Day SPa.
Talk to me about how you
stumbled on Cindy Yang.
Sure, so in the process
of trying to learn more
about this spa where Robert
Kraft was allegedly receiving
certain sexual acts
from masseuses,
we ended up stumbling,
as you said,
across the owner, Cindy Yang.
And Cindy Yang is interesting.
She's sort of serial
entrepreneur is how
we think of her,
and she came to the country
from China back in 2003,
ended up starting a
series of day spas,
one of which would become
Orchids of Asia Day Spa
where Robert Kraft went, and
sort of became an up and comer
in South Florida
through that scene.
But one of the businesses
that she pivoted
to in recent years,
was a business of access
peddling, essentially.
Now, let me just stop you there,
I just want to be clear, at
the time that Robert Kraft
was allegedly inside
doing something illicit,
was she the owner of the spa,
or had she sold the spa and
was no longer the owner.
She was no longer the owner.
JIM: She was no longer
the owner at that time.
At that time of that spa, no.
She did own other spas.
She owned a chain called
Tokyo Day Spas, and so, there
were still about three of
those spas in existence
in Palm Beach and Broward
County, at the time,
but they were not
part of the bust,
they were not part
of the allegations
about sex trafficking.
So you stumble across her
name as a former owner,
why do you continue
to take interest?
And what happens as you start
digging around her profile
on social media?
When was that moment?
Tell me about the
moment when suddenly,
you look at her
social media post
and see pictures of
her with Donald Trump.
Sure, so I think we
were just looking to see
if there was any possibility
that this sting was going to
extend into South Florida.
And that was the reason
for digging deeper and deeper
into these business records.
But, I think just going
through that exercise
showed me that she
had businesses beyond
spa businesses,
and one of them
was a foundation,
a women's charity foundation,
that never really
filed any tax returns,
didn't show up in 990's in
the way that you would expect,
and it turns out it
had a Facebook page.
When I clicked on that Facebook
page, I saw Mar-a-Lago.
And, I saw Cindy Yang
at Mar-a-Lago, so
I kept on clicking.
And that's when we saw
Cindy Yang with Donald Trump
watching the Super Bowl,
watching the Patriots
win the Super Bowl
at Trump International
Golf Course
at the grand ball
room there this year.
And it turns out,
she's actually involved
with lots of Republicans.
You are sort of
piecing together,
she's a major Republican donor,
has her picture taken with
lots of individuals, correct?
SARAH: That's right, I mean
in terms of major donor,
we're not talking about
millions of dollars,
we're talking about
tens of thousands
that she's sort of
pieced together.
But she's certainly
a wheeler and dealer,
and one of the things she
became very good at very quickly
was getting people
access to these famous,
high-profile,
Republican politicians
so that they can take
photos with them.
So Jay, let me bring
you in on this.
So we've potentially got
a couple of issues here.
The first is,
more along the lines of,
is she selling access.
Is she promising
to get people close to members
of the Trump Organization.
Remember, this is like, we're
talking about 2017, 2018,
really, that time period.
So, Donald Trump is
president by now,
this doesn't predate him.
So, we're looking at potentially
trying to pay for access
into the inner circle of
the Trump Administration.
But also, potentially
campaign finance violations.
Pick up the story there.
Well, where it all
becomes highly intriguing,
is when a woman by the name of
Yujing Zhang, in late March,
shows up out of thin
air at Mar-a-Lago
and tries to connive her way in,
succeeds getting past
a Secret Service agent,
and eventually getting
in to Mar-a-Lago.
But, she's eventually stopped.
And it turns out,
she gets arrested for
trespassing, they charge her.
And it looks like just a
simple trespassing case.
And, that's when I sort of
began to pay closer attention
to the reporting that
Sarah, and Nick Nehamas,
and Caitlin Ostroff were doing.
They were doing a
wonderful job of,
kind of showcasing Cindy
Yang, and all these,
kind of bizarre
six-degrees of separation
from various Chinese
leaders, businessmen,
Chinese nationals here
in the United States,
the Trump Campaign, Trump
donors, and Mar-a-Lago.
And it was like this
universe of people.
But when she shows
up, it was like,
what's going on here,
what's she doing there?
And at first,
it looked like she was just
another one of these people
who was buying access
to the president
by attending an
event at Mar-a-Lago.
Well then it turns out, the
event had been canceled,
then it turns out--
And it was Cindy Yang's
event, supposedly.
Correct, and I should
have made that clear,
but it was Cindy Yang's event.
And it was, a gala event
that had been canceled,
but she came all the
way to the United States
and South Florida anyway,
and tried to get in.
And so I started
checking with my sources,
and then I began to realize
that there had been
a counterintelligence
investigation
going on since late last year
into all of these
Chinese nationals
that were coming to Mar-a-Lago.
Now, I'm not suggesting
they were all suspects
in conducting espionage
for the Chinese government,
but South Florida FBI,
and South Florida
Counter Intelligence,
and South Florida Federal
US Attorney's Office,
were focusing on these
Chinese nationals
coming to Mar-a-Lago.
Well it makes sense
that Mar-a-Lago
was a potential
target, a soft target,
in some ways
Correct
for access to the president.
I remember those early days
of the Trump Administration,
I think he had the Japanese
Prime Minister here,
and he's sitting out
with a group of people
out in the middle of everything,
talking about plotting missions,
and I think there
was a raid on Syria,
there was a bombing
campaign on Syria.
Right.
So the fact that ordinary
people had, sort of,
crossed-paths with folks in
power there at Mar-a-Lago,
made it a softer target
than a lot of other places.
You weren't gonna walk
into the White House
the way you could
walk into Mar-a-Lago.
Correct, and what also became
apparent was this woman,
Yujing Zhang, was an
educated Chinese woman,
finance background,
she spoke some English,
and she was charged
with lying to a federal
agent and trespassing.
But, she had come in
with a stash of money
and a stash of electronics,
and supposedly malware.
And so the suspicion was,
she was trying to gather
information at Mar-a-Lago.
So when you say electronics,
are we talking about
thumb drives, jump drives,
that potentially you plug it
into one of the
systems in Mar-a-Lago,
and then maybe see if it
sort of works it's way
into something more sensitive?
Correct, either to
gather information,
or to spread misinformation.
It's unclear which way it was
supposedly intended to do.
And now it's interesting, she's
in federal court right now
and one of the things
you've picked up on,
and both of you
have picked up on,
is the fact that this case,
there are elements within
the US Attorney's Office
that are trying to close
part of it to the public
because of the sensitive
national security
implications of some of this.
Which suggests, this is
ramping up in a big way.
Yes, it is and they're
not just looking at her.
I mean, they had been looking
at others in South Florida,
business men that were aware,
business men that had been
identified in the stories
that Sarah had done with
her other colleagues.
And it was apparent
that there were access agents,
we call them, coming here
perhaps trying to
gather information
about people at Mar-a-Lago, or
the president, or his family,
or other people
in South Florida.
They were here possibly
doing business deals,
real estate deals,
anything of that nature.
But the focus on the
classified information
has more to do
with Yujing Zhang,
and it's filed in her case,
it's not a trespassing
case anymore.
But we won't know
because the information
that the US Attorney's
Office wants to file
in the court record
can't be shared with her
under the Classified
Information Protection Act.
So we've got this
aspect of it going.
Sarah I wanna come back to you.
Obviously the notion
of buying access,
we sort of jumped ahead to
this counterintelligence
part of it.
But I mean, you are dealing
with potentially campaign
finance violations,
there are issues
surrounding whether or not
campaign donations that were
made to the Trump campaign
may have been potentially
reimbursed by others.
Those allegations are
being examined, correct?
That's right.
I mean, there are a couple
of issues here, right?
One is, as you pointed out,
that Mar-a-Lago is
just an access point.
So, any event at Mar-a-Lago
should be one where
the guest list, you would
think, should be scrutinized
just because of who's coming
into the quote unquote,
Winter White House.
But, there's also this
secondary element.
And that's when the event is
a campaign fundraiser event,
there are extra rules.
And to make them sort of simple,
anyone who doesn't hold a
green card, or is a US Citizen,
is not allowed to pay
into a campaign event.
They can attend as a guest,
but they can't pay to be there.
I got to stop it there.
It's fascinating stuff, you
guys have been doing phenomenal
work with your colleagues.
I would encourage everyone
to continue reading
the Miami Herald, subscribe
to the Miami Herald,
all good stuff.
All right, thank you both.
When we come back, we
will continue our look
at Miami's forgotten
workers at the airport.