A Ukrainian-born woman reportedly gained access to former US president Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and met with senior Republican officials while claiming to be a member of the famed Jewish European banking dynasty, the Rothschild family, according to a new US investigative report.
The woman in question is Inna Yashchyshyn, 33, who came to Mar-a-Lago allegedly armed with a false identity as Anna de Rothschild as well as an expensive Rolex wristwatch and driving a new Mercedes Benz AMG G63, according to a report from The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
"We always thought her grandfather had the money and that he was an oligarch."
Paul Barton, property developer
Who is this woman claiming to be a Rothschild mingling with Trump?
Yashchyshyn is the daughter of a truck driver and has been linked to different charity organizations, specifically United Hearts of Mercy in Miami, as well as the company Ambit Energy. Both of these companies have been suspected of fraud and have been the subject of investigations, as noted by the OCCRP. She is also currently being investigated in the US and Canada.
The FBI has been given copies of fake US and Canadian passports, which show her name as Anna de Rothschild, though Yashchyshyn herself claims to be innocent and the victim in this situation, saying that all of this was forged by a former business partner to harm her.
"That's all fake, and nothing happened," Yashchyshyn said, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Despite this, there is evidence against her. Specifically, photos and videos showing Yashchyshyn on the grounds of Mar-a-Lago in May 2021, where she was seen mingling with Trump and other senior Republican officials. However, as noted by The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report, she claims these are forgeries, too.
The investigation by the OCCPR claims that Yashchyshyn met with property developer Paul Barton and New York financier and Trump supporter Elchanan "Elki" Adamker in the Caribbean and was involved in real estate ventures, though whether they came to pass is unclear. Adamker was reportedly the one who invited her to Mar-a-Lago.
"We always thought her grandfather had the money and that he was an oligarch," Barton said, according to the OCCPR.
In this capacity, she was able to enter Trump's estate.
"The question is was it a fraud or an intelligence threat. The fact that we are asking this question is a problem."
Charles Marino, former US Secret Service supervisor
Fake Rothschild and the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago: A security risk
Regardless of the veracity of Yashchyshyn's claims and whatever her motivation may have been, the real issue behind this incident is that someone was allegedly able to infiltrate Mar-a-Lago under a false identity.
This comes amid the FBI's high-profile raid on Trump's Florida estate, seizing hundreds of documents that were originally classified White House documents.
With that in mind, it raises questions about how securely were these classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, and could someone like Yashchyshyn have had access to them.
In addition, despite Trump no longer being in the White House, he still is a key figure in US political discourse and a dominant figure in the Republican Party. As such, Mar-a-Lago is frequently visited by other high-profile Republican politicians. In other words, it is often home to high-level information from some of the upper echelons of the US legislature.
This and the fact that it is Trump's home means Mar-a-Lago is under heavy guard and surveillance by the Secret Service. But despite this, someone was still reportedly able to sneak in with a fake identity.
"The question is was it a fraud or an intelligence threat," former Secret Service supervisor Charles Marino said, according to the OCCRP. "The fact that we are asking this question is a problem."