Enrique Acevedo anchors the late-night national newscast for Univision, the Spanish-language TV network. On Tuesday night, Acevedo finished the broadcast at midnight at the network's studios in Doral, Fla., near the Miami airport.
Acevedo was headed to Trump National Doral Miami, a large golf resort owned by the GOP nominee, which was just a few blocks from the Univision studios.
Earlier that night, Acevedo had seen a report — circulated on Twitter and reported by The Washington Post — that the Doral resort was home to a semi-famous work of art.
It was a four-foot-tall portrait of Trump himself, painted by Miami Beach-based artist Havi Schanz. In 2014, the painting had been auctioned off during a charity gala at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla. Trump himself was the winning bidder, buying the painting for $10,000. Then, later, Trump actually paid for the painting with a check from his charity, the Donald J. Trump Foundation.
Tax law experts had said that this could violate a law against "self-dealing," which prohibits nonprofit leaders from spending charity money to buy things for themselves. Those experts had said that, if the Trump Foundation paid for the painting, then the painting had to be put to charitable use.
It couldn't just be hung, say, on the wall of one of Trump's golf clubs.
Trump's campaign hadn't responded to questions about where the painting was.
But then, on Tuesday night, Post readers found a picture of the portrait on the website Tripadvisor.com. The photo, dated from February, appeared to show the portrait hanging on the wall at one of Trump's golf clubs: Doral.
Acevedo wanted to see whether the painting was still there, so he had reserved a room. After checking in and getting a golf-cart ride to his room, he began to wander the quiet halls of the resort, showing a photo of the painting to late-night cleaning staff.
"Have you seen this picture?" he asked, in English and Spanish. "They said, 'Oh yeah, it’s downstairs.' "
Acevedo went downstairs, to the doorway of the closed-up Champions Bar and Grill. A worker was coming out. He asked, in Spanish, if he could look inside.
And there was the painting. Hung on the wall of the bar.
"The only label is the maximum-occupancy" sign next to the painting, Acevedo said.
No plaque?
" 'Donated by the Trump Foundation?' Acevedo asked. "There was nothing like that."
Acevedo snapped pictures, then went back and ordered room service for dinner. The next morning, he posted a message on Twitter that confirmed that the painting was still there. A portrait paid for by a charity was decorating the wall of Trump's for-profit business.
The Trump campaign has still not responded to questions about the location of the painting.