E VER SINCE diners at Mar-a-Lago snapped pictures of President Donald Trump plotting America’s response to a North Korean missile test with his Japanese counterpart, there have been national-security concerns about the president’s “Winter White House”. Yet reports about a Mar-a-Lago frequenter called Li Yang, who also goes by Cindy Yang, suggest they underestimated the risks of Mr Trump’s freewheeling style. Bearing all the hallmarks of a Trump scandal, the revelations from the Miami Herald, Mother Jones and others are salacious, worrying and bizarre.

Ms Yang, a 45-year-old entrepreneur and immigrant from China, and her family have founded massage parlours across Florida. Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, was charged last month with soliciting oral sex in one of them, Orchids of Asia, which the Yang family no longer owned. Mr Kraft is a longtime Trump pal; coincidentally, Ms Yang recently launched a business peddling access to the president and other Republican politicians to Chinese investors. Indeed, she was snapped alongside Mr Trump at a Super Bowl party in Mar-a-Lago, at which the president was supporting Mr Kraft’s team.

Mr Kraft’s arrest caused a media storm. It followed a months-long police operation against massage parlours in Florida, which were alleged to be involved in trafficking sex workers. Yet on the evidence gathered from hidden police cameras, over 100 customers including Mr Kraft were arrested for soliciting, and a dozen employees on charges related to prostitution. No one has been charged with trafficking—or anything more serious than involvement in turning occasional tricks at a low-end massage joint. Ms Yang’s recent business ventures, which have been much less covered, appear far more troubling.