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Prosecutors say Tom Barrack was involved in a scheme to gain “power and money”; the defense denies he acted as a foreign agent.
US prosecutors have accused Donald Trump ally Tom Barack of using his contacts with the former president to influence Washington’s foreign policy in support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Barack’s trial began this week in New York, and prosecutors on Wednesday charged the 75-year-old with acting as a secret agent in the UAE for “power and money”.
Barack is Trump’s chairman Inaugural Committee In early 2017, he pleaded not guilty to last year’s charges.
Matthew Grimes, an employee barracks The investment firm is on trial with him on similar charges. The third co-defendant, Emirati businessman Rashid Malik Alshahi, is at large.
“when Donald Trump In running for president, the defendants saw an opportunity — an opportunity to use Barack’s unique access to gain power and money for themselves,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Hilal Mehta told jurors Wednesday.
But defense lawyer Michael Schacht stressed that there was no evidence that Barak agreed to act as the UAE’s representative, saying he was pursuing his own economic and political interests.
“Tom Barack is his own man,” he said. “Everything Tom does, you see he does it as his own person and makes his own decisions.”
US Department of Justice make an accusation Against Barak last year, detailing various incidents in which it said the businessman was acting “on the direction of Emirati officials” to influence the Trump campaign and subsequent administration’s foreign policy stance.
For example, in 2017, Barak agreed to “promote” the candidacy of a favored UAE official to be ambassador to Abu Dhabi, according to prosecutors.
In another example cited by the Justice Department in a statement last year, the government accused Barak of communicating with his co-defendant Alshahhi in September 2017 about “the UAE’s opposition to the proposed summit at Camp David”.
The summit aims to “address a ongoing controversy “Between the governments of the State of Qatar, the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries, Barak sought to advise the US president against holding the Camp David summit,” the department said.
“The summit never happened,” its statement said.
US law makes it illegal to lobby on behalf of a foreign government or entity without declaring such activity under the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) database.
Barack’s trial is expected to last several weeks at a time when Trump is facing a slew of legal issues, including a New York prosecutor for alleged fraudulent business practices The Justice Department launched an investigation into his possible mishandling of classified documents.
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