BROOKLYN—On the final day of billionaire Tom Barrack’s thief trial, prosecutors closed with a dramatic picture: a tough financier, connected to Donald Trump and the highest levels of his administration, reduced to a plaintive lackey obsessed with enjoying his spy agents in the United States. United Arab Emirates.
Barrack, once a big caller in the real estate investment world, is accused of abusing his closeness to then-President Trump to advance the interests of Arab royalty. .
In closing arguments, U. S. Attorney Ryan C. Harris recapped emails and text messages explaining how Barrack became the UAE’s spokesman on national television news programs, held friendly meetings with the Trump White House, and even fine-tuned the GOP platform in the 2016 Republican election. National Convention.
The proposals had such ostentatious titles as “Gaining Influence in the United States” and “A Proposal for the Influence of the United Arab Emirates in the United States. “In a text message, Barrack even touted his stance to help the UAE capital, noting that it would “give more strength to ABU DHABI. “
“Ladies and gentlemen, you can’t get more distillation of the defendant’s intent than those documents,” Harris told the jury. “He understands his role. Understand your position in UAE operations. . . They would have a girl inside.
Officials say Barrack’s business meeting with a UAE spy leader on his ship, his lavish dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and his constant communications with an Emirati twist had a huge pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: for Gulf states’ sovereign wealth funds.
“We hit the jackpot in the Middle East,” Barrack wrote in a 2017 email.
Years of cheerleading in the UAE have generated $374 million for Colony Capital, the real estate investment company Barrack founded and ran until his abrupt resignation last year. Barrack, now 75, faces prison, a rare sight for a master of the modern universe.
On Tuesday morning, defense attorneys presented a way of choosing to interpret all seized communications. He is a billionaire in the twilight of his lifetime, they said, seeking to use his oversized vantage point to bring peace to the Middle East.
Emails and text messages have been taken out of context. There was nothing with Barrack casually protecting his business partners. And the gain didn’t even directly take advantage of Barrack, they argued. cash injection from the UAE and Saudi Arabia was barely a tenth of its overall portfolio.
Defense attorney Randall Jackson told jurors it “doesn’t make sense” that after a “busy career,” Barrack would say, “In my final chapter, I’m going to dedicate myself to serious crimes. “
He said the billionaire had done nothing through the Emiratis to talk about business and politics, or to protect the UAE for its efforts in the fight against al-Qaeda.
“What did he say was not true?” Jackson asked.
However, the dozens of text messages and emails seized by the FBI painted a grim picture. Barrack would appear on TV and then immediately ask his private assistant to check in with his Emirati “friend” to make sure the “boss” in the UAE was satisfied with how things were going.
Chief “Sheikh Tahnoun” bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s most no-nonsense national security adviser.
Communication ranged from awkward to embarrassing. At one point, Barrack’s assistant, Matthew Grimes, who also faces fees for fraud, had to apologize when the billionaire failed to call an Emirati official for a television interview.
All of this continued when Barrack lent his support to his private friend, Donald Trump, the longtime Republican presidential nominee at the time. win in 2016.
Barrack’s access made him even more valuable to the Emiratis. The emails showed how Trump’s friend constantly asked for his approval. For example, before the financier drafted an energy plan for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, he sent several versions of the plan to Rashad Al. Malik, an Emirati businessman whom the federal government presented as an intermediary between Barrack and the spies of the United Arab Emirates.
And when the GOP was going to mention the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at its national conference that year, Barrack made sure to remove a specific line mentioning Saudi Arabia.
If convicted of obstruction of justice, Barrack faces 20 years in prison. The rate of unregistered foreign lobbying offenders and multiple charges of mendacity to FBI special agents also threaten a decade or more in prison.