Thread by @ClimateAudit

1/Trump had several conflict of interest complaints against Mueller. Most important was conflict arising from his friendship with Comey in regard to obstruction investigation. I have puzzles over supposed dispute over Mueller family request for refund of golf club initiation fees

2/ Mueller Report contained long footnote giving Mueller's side, according to which they sent letter on Oct 12, 2011 asking for refund of part of initiation fees paid in 1994. They say that club accepted resignation effective Oct 31 and said that they would be placed on waitlist

3/ for refund on first resigned/first refund basis. They cited Oct 27 Muellers Letter to Trump National Golf Club.

Small question 1: is that a typo? Wouldn't that information have come from a letter from Trump National to Muellers, rather than Muellers to Trump National?

4/ Trump bought his golf club from Northern Virginia from a bank after previous owner defaulted to bank. Usually, the bank has first position over unsecured creditors (including potential refunds of initiation fees). Hard to picture a purchase which didnt extinguish such rights.

5/ has anyone seen details on re-structuring when Trump National became owner of golf club in 2009?

6/ now for a substantive piece of wondering: Mueller says that Mueller family never contacted Trump National after being told that they were being placed on a waitlist? Why not? Wouldn't they check to see where they were on the refund list. (From a brief perusal of golf club

7/ agreements, it seems that golf clubs typically allocate one of every four memberships sold to the refund list. (It also seems that refundable memberships are losing favor relative to non-refundable memberships priced lower.) Why wouldn't Muellers at least ask?

8/ most puzzling to me: if Muellers merely sent a routine inquiry and received essentially a form letter response, why would Trump, who was running huge business empire, know about this exchange of letters in the first place? Did club secretary run decision by Trump because

9/ Mueller was FBI director and he didn't want to unintentionally offend Mueller lest he retaliate against Trump? Is it possible that Mueller request was out of ordinary for the Northern Virginia golf club and the club secretary was worried that Mueller as FBI Director expected

10/ special treatment? Not that he necessarily did, but maybe it was so perceived.

All in all, it seems weird that such a seemingly innocuous request would be recalled by Trump six years later.

11/ I'm not suggesting that there's anything untoward in respect to this incident. Mostly, I don't understand why Trump would know about the incident in the first place.