A Chinese citizen was arrested Wednesday after police said he repeatedly tried to get into former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, while he claimed that he had documents that tie his home country's government to the July 13 assassination attempt on the Republican nominee for president.
Zijie Li, 38, of El Monte, California, faces a misdemeanor trespassing charge in the incident, and remained at the Palm Beach County Jail on Thursday morning on a $3,000 bond, according to court records.
According to jail records, this is the first security-related arrest at Mar-a-Lago since July 13, when a gunman shot at Trump as he spoke at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. The shooter, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was killed by Secret Service agents after wounding Trump's ear and shooting three of his supporters, killing one.
The Secret Service has increased security around Trump's estate and his other properties since that incident, including the agency's decision to close South Ocean Boulevard next to Mar-a-Lago. The closure, which extends from the Southern Boulevard traffic circle north to South County Road, went into effect at 5 a.m. July 20.
Li's first attempt to reach Mar-a-Lago was the day before, at about 8 p.m. July 19, when he pulled up to the estate's main gate on South Ocean Boulevard in a gray Toyota Prius and told Secret Service agents that he had documents showing China was involved in the attempted assassination, according to an arrest report.
Trump was not at Mar-a-Lago at the time — he was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the Republican National Convention that week.
Local law enforcement officers told Li that he was trespassing and was not allowed into Mar-a-Lago, and the Palm Beach Police Department issued him a written warning, the report said. Police told Li that he could not return to Mar-a-Lago or he would be arrested.
Town security cameras show that Li's next visit to Palm Beach was July 22, when he twice drove east and then west again over the Royal Park Bridge, first in the morning and then in the afternoon, the arrest report said. Trump was at Mar-a-Lago that day, having returned from Wisconsin very early the previous morning.
On July 30, Li was spotted at about 5:40 p.m. driving toward the security checkpoint for Mar-a-Lago at South County Road and South Ocean Boulevard, the report said. Li was blocking a lane of traffic, so a Palm Beach Police officer stopped him and noticed that Mar-a-Lago's address, 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., was on Li's GPS system, according to the arrest report.
Li was released and left town heading west over the Royal Park Bridge, but returned less than an hour later when his car was spotted south of Mar-a-Lago on South Ocean Boulevard, the report said. This time, Palm Beach Police and Secret Service agents again stopped him and told him not to return to Mar-a-Lago.
But, police said, Li kept trying.
His car first traveled east and then west over the Royal Park Bridge north of Mar-a-Lago between 8 and 8:30 a.m., according to town security cameras. Li's Prius was then spotted minutes later going east over the Southern Boulevard Bridge next to Mar-a-Lago, and he drove past the Secret Service checkpoint and south to Lake Worth Beach, the arrest report said.
He came back again about 10 a.m., driving east on Southern Boulevard across the Intracoastal Waterway and past the Secret Service checkpoints, trying to enter Mar-a-Lago at the estate's southern gate, police said.
At that point, he was back on Mar-a-Lago property and in violation of the trespassing warning, the report said. When security told Li that he couldn't enter Mar-a-Lago, he left again — but this time, officers were looking for him.
Palm Beach Police found him back in Palm Beach, and Li was arrested at the intersection of Royal Palm Way and South County Road, north of Mar-a-Lago.
The Secret Service referred the Daily News' request for comment to the Palm Beach Police Department. Police spokesman Capt. Will Rothrock said the town did not have a comment.
The Secret Service thanked the town and Palm Beach County "for the unwavering assistance and support they provide to us every day to safeguard the former President," Anthony Guglielmi, Secret Service chief of communications, said in an email.
Li is not the first Chinese citizen to face charges for trying to gain access to Mar-a-Lago. A 32-year-old Chinese woman was arrested in 2019 after the Secret Service said she lied to get into the club and then claimed she wanted to talk to Trump about economic relations between China and the United States.
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her atkwebb@pbdailynews.com.Subscribe todaytosupport our journalism.
