Donald Trump posed for picture with former Philly mob boss Joey Merlino

They share an affinity for golf and an aversion to cooperating witnesses who “flip” to assist federal investigators.

But former president Donald Trump and former Philly mob boss Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino don’t have a lot to say about how they wound up in a photograph collectively at a South Florida golf course.

Trump posed for the picture with Merlino earlier this month at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach. The two, alongside with an unidentified third man, flash Trump’s customary “thumbs-up” hand indicators and smiles whereas sporting {golfing} apparel.

Does Trump know Merlino? Or no less than who he was?

His presidential marketing campaign received’t say.

The picture, obtained by The Inquirer, is prone to renew issues amongst Trump loyalists keen to assist him retake the White House subsequent yr that he nonetheless lacks the form of protecting political infrastructure that will stop a candidate for president from taking a picture with a convicted mobster whose final stint in federal jail resulted in mid-2020.

“President Trump takes countless photos with people. That does not mean he knows every single person he comes in contact with,” mentioned a Trump spokesperson after The Inquirer shared a replica of the picture with his marketing campaign.

The spokesperson didn’t reply when requested if Trump knew Merlino, or his background.

Trump sparked outrage when he dined Nov. 22 at Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach personal membership and residence, with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist who had proven up with Ye, the rapper previously often called Kanye West, who was below hearth then for a series of antisemitic remarks.

That now-notorious dinner occurred only one week after Trump announced his third bid for president.

Trump later complained in regards to the outcry, claiming he didn’t know Fuentes or about his fiercely bigoted ideology. Still, Democrats and Republican critics railed in regards to the dinner and Trump’s former vice chairman, Mike Pence, called on him to apologize.

The fall out prompted Trump’s marketing campaign to enact new protocols for vetting and approving individuals he met with. Those protocols weren’t apparently adopted at Trump’s golf course this month.

Merlino didn’t reply to requests for remark.

In the marginally blurry picture, Merlino wears a grey polo shirt, darkish shorts, and sneakers. A supply who offered the picture and requested anonymity to debate it, mentioned the third man pictured is a pal of Merlino’s. That man additionally wears a polo shirt, shorts, and sneakers alongside with a purple “Keep America Great” baseball cap.

Trump is proven sporting a white polo shirt, darkish pants, white golf sneakers and a purple “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.

Merlino has made clear up to now that he admires Trump. It is unclear if Trump feels the identical.

Trump and Merlino have been well-known and on the rise within the Philadelphia area within the Nineties — for very totally different causes.

Trump was a distinguished New York actual property developer with a rising assortment of casinos in Atlantic City within the Nineties.

Merlino was a pacesetter of a violent crew on his means as much as being boss of an organized crime operation energetic in Philadelphia and Atlantic City.

Trump’s on line casino empire was ultimately mired in chapter, however his star continued to rise, with elevated fame from a actuality tv sequence the next decade after which a profitable run for president in 2016.

Merlino was convicted in 2001 in a racketeering case and served a decade in federal jail. He had claimed extra just lately to have left that life behind, shifting to Boca Raton in Florida to work as maître d’ at an Italian restaurant named after him.

The restaurant closed after Merlino’s most up-to-date run-in with the feds, which led to a two-year sentence in October 2018 when he pleaded guilty to a gambling-related cost. Merlino, after being sentenced, echoed feedback from Trump on the time that have been important of witnesses who cooperate with federal investigators.

“President Trump is right — they’ve got to outlaw the flippers,” mentioned Merlino, who was launched from jail in July 2020.

Trump in August 2018 mentioned the follow of prosecutors “flipping” individuals accused of crimes into witnesses who testify in opposition to others “almost ought to be illegal” after his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, pleaded responsible to a marketing campaign finance crime — paying girls to maintain quiet about affairs that they had with Trump —and implicated his former shopper.

Merlino was pulled into Trump’s orbit within the weeks after the 2020 basic election when an internet site identified for trafficking in misinformation falsely claimed he had been paid $3 million to assist Joe Biden win Philadelphia with 1000’s of pretend ballots.

Jordan Sekulow, an legal professional who had served in late 2019 and early 2020 on Trump’s legal team for his first impeachment, gave that false claim a public boost by tweeting a link to the web site.

The declare was swiftly debunked by a number of media organizations, including Fox News. Even Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s legal professional, known as the declare “far-fetched.”

Still, it precipitated Merlino some agita.

“Joey is a Trumper and any allegation of fixing this is just completely fiction,” an legal professional for Merlino advised Fox News on the time, including that his shopper “is against cooperating witnesses and against making uncorroborated deals with snitches, which is what the president is against.”