By Emily Caldwell
11:49 a. m. on August 26, 2022 EDT
WASHINGTON – The timing of the arrest of the former Republican representative of the United States. Steve Stockman, convicted in 2018 in a complex corruption scheme involving the misuse of charity funds, can be used as a means for U. S. lawyers to build a case against Trump’s best friend, Tom Barrack. .
Barrack, a fair investor and close friend of former President Donald Trump, will stand trial with a trading partner in September for illegally pressuring Trump on behalf of the United Arab Emirates.
In a brief filed before Barrack’s trial, the lawyers said they provided evidence that Barrack and his associate had been tasked through the UAE to meet and advocate for Stockman’s appointment as U. S. ambassador. The U. S. in the United Arab Emirates, but they couldn’t do it. due to Stockman’s arrest on March 16, 2017.
The lawyers argued that “Stockman’s arrest is applicable because it explains why the defendants were unable to respond to this request, they agreed to do so. “
“Without this information, the jury would possibly erroneously conclude that the defendants deliberately refused to act on the instructions of the United Arab Emirates, when in fact cases beyond their means prevented them from doing so,” the lawyers wrote.
Although Stockman’s call was removed from the public record, the text describing him as a former member of Congress and his date of arrest are obviously visible, and Stockman, in the weeks leading up to his arrest, indicated that he was very interested in obtaining the position of ambassador of the United Arab Emirates.
Barrack, 74, who chaired Trump’s inaugural fund in 2017, and his partner Matthew Grimes, 27, were arrested in July.
Both men pleaded not guilty to tariffs secretly selling UAE interests, under the leadership of senior UAE officials, which influenced foreign policy positions in Trump’s 2016 crusade and US government positions. The U. S. in the early part of Trump’s presidency.
In 2018, Stockman was convicted by a federal court of orchestrating a large-scale fraud scheme, large charitable donations from large conservative donors to cover crusade debts and private expenses. to him, adding fraud, money laundering and violation of federal electoral law.
In late 2020, Trump commuted the remainder of Stockman’s 10-year criminal sentence, prompting his release from the federal correctional facility, a low-security facility in Beaumont. His circle of relatives had worried about his physical condition after contracting COVID-19 while he was incarcerated. .
Emily Caldwell covers politics in Washington for The Dallas Morning News. She is originally from College Station, Texas, and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2021 with degrees in journalism and Latin American studies. She spent several years at the Daily Texan, UT’s student newspaper and editor-in-chief in her senior year.