What was Donald Trump doing on the day of indictment? He spent it with a Miami player

Tee time shall wait for no one, or no thing.

On the day federal prosecutors unsealed a 49-page indictment Friday detailing 37 counts against former President Donald Trump, the 45th U.S. president and Rep. Carlos Gimenez, were photographed together, each giving a thumbs up and smiling, on a golf course Friday morning at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.

The Republican Miami congressman, whose district includes a southwest portion of Miami-Dade and all of Monroe County in the Florida Keys, posted the image to his Twitter page Friday afternoon.

Gimenez, a 1972 Christopher Columbus High School graduate in West Miami-Dade and a public administration graduate from Barry University in Miami Shores, was not immediately available for comment, his spokesman said Saturday.

The only text on Gimenez’s tweet: “Tee Time With Trump!” and an American flag emoji.

The post has been seen by about 675,000 Twitter users and generated attention.

“It’s not really a different day for President Trump,” one of Trump’s atttorneys, Alina Habba, said on Fox News in the hours after his indictment, the New York Times reported. “This is something he’s gone through before.”

Trump-Gimenez relationship

This was not the first time the former president and the congressman have played golf together. The two joined on the links in Palm Beach County during Trump’s presidency.

Gimenez was a term-limited Miami-Dade mayor with aspirations to Congress in 2020. And he had the backing of the president, who tweeted at the time: “Carlos will win big, very exciting. Great for Florida, great for USA! He has my complete and total Endorsement!”“

Gimenez greeted Trump at Miami International Airport in January 2020 “in a high-profile welcome arranged by the White House as the Republican mayor runs for Congress three years after saying he was voting for Hillary Clinton,” the Miami Herald reported.

But that Trump-Gimenez pairing didn’t initially get off to a friendly start — because of that initial slight.

When Gimenez was running for reelection as county mayor in 2016, he appeared on TV days after Trump’s pre-“Access Hollywood” taping comments to then-host Billy Bush aired from a 2005 chat. That’s the one in which Trump uttered the infamous “grab ‘em by the ...” line.

Gimenez urged Trump to drop out of the presidential race over his “despicable” remarks from 2005, the Herald reported, quoting Miami-Dade’s mayor at the time saying, “I’m not going to vote for Donald Trump, that’s for sure ... I’m voting for Hillary Clinton.”

The former first lady garnered the popular vote, but Trump won the all-important Electoral College vote.

The victor reportedly didn’t forget Gimenez’s slight.

When Air Force One flew to Miami, in 2018, Trump’s White House declined to let Gimenez join his welcoming party.

But the pair started mending the frosty start a year earlier after Gimenez backed Trump and ordered Miami-Dade jails to comply with Trump’s “sanctuary cities” crackdown on immigrants in 2017.

By 2020, golfing together was no longer a far-fetched prospect.

“Welcome to Miami @realDonaldTrump. Thank you for all you’ve done for our economy & to fight socialism. I look forward to standing w/ you against the radical left who are determined to turn the U.S. into Venezuela. I’m running!,” Gimenez tweeted on Jan. 23, 2020.

What the indictment says

The indictment lists 37 counts accusing Trump of retaining national defense secrets in violation of the Espionage Act, making false statements and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Where’s Trump going next?

Trump, the leading GOP candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, hits the campaign trail Saturday, traveling to Georgia for an afternoon appearance at the GOP convention.

Later Saturday evening, the former president and 2024 presidential candidate will be in North Carolina to deliver a speech at another convention, CBS News reported.

He hasn’t announced his plans for Sunday and Monday, although he could be traveling to South Florida in advance of Tuesday’s court appearance.

On Saturday morning Trump posted a message, in caps, to his Truth Social page that suggested Americans went to sleep Friday night in tears but that soon smiles would return. “FOR WE WILL HAVE DEFEATED THE RADICAL LEFT MARXISTS, FASCISTS, COMMUNISTS, LUNATICS, & DERANGED MANIACS, & CLEARED THE PATH TO PUT AMERICA FIRST & THEN, QUICKLY, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

KNOW MORE: Security ramps up for Trump Miami court appearance. Details few but expect traffic jams

Trump faces arraignment at downtown Miami’s federal courthouse Tuesday afternoon.