Trump took $17 million in insurance for damage few remember

PALM BEACH, Fla. – Donald Trump received a $17 million insurance payment in 2005 for hurricane damage to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, but The Associated Press can find little evidence of such large-scale damage.

Trump has said the property was devastated after hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. But Mar-a-Lago members, staff and preservation officials do not recall significant damage, raising questions about how the payout was approved. Nor do Palm Beach building permit records show that Trump ever performed major reconstruction or restoration work to the historic property, though former city officials say such repairs would almost certainly have required approval.

Trump did not answer questions from the AP about the damage, but he conceded pocketing some of the insurance money in a 2007 deposition in an unrelated civil lawsuit.