Yet Another Fake Internet Story — By Tommy Purser

I saw an Internet post the other day that raised my doubts. It started out, “A true story ….” and while it was partly true it left out a lot of the story, and it was full of inaccuracies. The post told the story of how Donald Trump put up a 50-ft. flag pole in front of Mar-A-Lago that violated Palm Beach, Fla., zoning regulations that limited flag poles to 30 ft. Long story short, after being fined $1,000 a day for 120 days he settled the matter, gave his fine to charity, and built a 20 ft. mound on which to put a 30 ft. flag, making it 50 ft. off the ground. Nice story, but it ain’t accurate.

The truth is that Trump put up not only a pole that violated Palm Beach’s zoning laws but also put up an oversized flag that also was in violation. The pole was actually 80 ft. and the zoning limited poles to 42 ft. not 30.  Palm Beach fined him $1,250 a day and Trump in turn filed a $25 million lawsuit against Palm Beach. Six costly months later, the two sides reached an agreement during “secret, court-ordered negoatiations.”

The city agreed to waive all the fines and review its ordinances and Trump agreed to drop his lawsuit, lower the height of his flagpole from 80 to 70 feet, obtain a permit, move it farther inland and donate $100,000 “to charities dealing with Iraq War Veterans, [the] American Flag, or the local VA hospital,” organizations selected by both sides.

As I’ve said here many times, don’t believe everything you read on social media.