Donald Trump's billionaire friend Tom Barrack was found not guilty on Friday after a trial that went on for weeks couldn't apparently convince jurors that Barrack had illegally acted as an unregistered foreign lobbyist for the United Arab Emirates.
The five-week trial in New York City was a rare sight, with federal prosecutors aggressively attacking a modern-day real estate baron. The uber-wealthy investor was acquitted of being an unregistered lobbyist for a foreign government. He was also found not guilty of lying to the FBI about his interactions with UAE royals and spy agency personnel.
Barrack, 75, faced up to 20 years in prison for obstruction of justice, given the way he misled FBI special agents about his secret second phone, which he used to have encrypted chats with spy-connected Emiratis about the ways he was looking out for their interests. Those communications happened as Barrack advised Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
ADVERTISEMENT
At trial, prosecutors presented emails and text messages that showed the lengths to which Barrack would go to please his UAE “friends,” which included Emirati royals and spy officials. The otherwise commanding capitalist was reduced to a supplicant stooge who sought their approval—all for the promise of a hefty infusion of Gulf state cash into his real estate investment company, Colony Capital.
Photos showed how Barrack would hang with rich Emiratis who dangled the chance to dip into the seemingly bottomless Gulf state sovereign wealth funds—a promise that prosecutors say was fulfilled in 2017 and 2018 in the form of a $374 million cash infusion.
However, it wasn’t enough to convince Brooklyn jurors that the relationships amounted to an agreement for Barrack to represent UAE interests.
During the trial, Brooklyn jurors were shown how Barrack was first approached by Emirati businessman Rashid Al-Malik with an opportunity to cozy up to UAE royalty. In early 2016, just as it became apparent that Barrack’s financier status would usher in Wall Street support for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, the Emiratis turned Barrack into their cheerleader: on national TV news and even at the Republican National Convention. Then when Trump actually made it to the White House, Barrack's handlers used him to ingratiate themselves with the American president.
Emails documented the extent of the control—and the embarrassingly enthusiastic way Barrack kept seeking their approval. It always pleased the UAE, and that sometimes spilled over into favors for Saudi Arabia.
In early 2016, for example, Barrack sent Al Malik multiple versions of a draft energy plan before the billionaire ever passed it onto the Trump campaign. Later that summer, Barrack successfully pulled any mention of Saudi royal involvement in a speech about the 9/11 terror attacks. In early 2017, Barrack ignored then-State Secretary Rex Tillerson’s pleas to not get involved in Saudi political affairs and instead used his influence in the Trump administration to make sure a Saudi prince who was vying for total control of that country—Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud—would get treated as if he were already in charge.
In texts, Barrack gloated about his White House influence, noting how he “forced them to elevate him to the level of prime minister” instead of deputy crown prince “for protocol purposes.” MBS, as he is popularly known, is now the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
The UAE campaign was persistent—and well documented.
In March 2017, Al Malik sent Barrack’s personal assistant a list of eight talking points the billionaire should parrot. That list was sent verbatim to CNN host Erin Burnett, who interviewed Barrack on her evening show. At trial, prosecutors pointed out how Barrack would find painfully odd ways to name drop his future patrons—like the way he consistently championed the actions of “Sheikh Tahnoun” bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE’s top national security adviser, even when the topic at hand had little to do with him. At times in text messages, Barrack’s side even referred to the spy chief as “the boss.” Barrack similarly became a cheerleader for the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, known colloquially as “MBZ.”
“This was about product placement. This is about ensuring that MBZ and ‘the boss’ were pleased,” prosecutor Ryan C. Harris told jurors in his closing arguments. “This is about using UAE money to influence the American public.”
Although the Justice Department didn’t manage to get any insiders at Colony Capital or the UAE to confess to the intimate details of the operation, FBI special agents managed to get Al Malik’s draft iPhone notes, down to the moment they were drafted and tweaked. They also seized Barrack emails marked “totally confidential” that laid out the plan, which was explicitly referred to as a strategy “to strengthen UAE influence in the USA” and “strengthen the influence… and prosperity of United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and their people.”
At one point, Barrack even emailed his assistant, Matthew Grimes, to make sure they could use the encrypted chatting app Signal to keep privately communicating with the UAE spy chief, Sheikh Tahnoun.
By contrast, Barrack’s lawyers cast the entire body of evidence as a big misunderstanding. This was merely a billionaire establishing friendly business relationships and hoping to use the “sunset of his career” to bring peace to the Middle East.
Defense attorney Randall Jackson told jurors it “makes no sense” that after a “storied career” Barrack would say, “in my final chapter, I’m going to engage in serious crimes.”
This Brooklyn trial was a unique criminal case, with law enforcement putting Barrack’s lavish lifestyle and his complex business and political connections under a microscope. Part of that was the billionaire’s decision to champion Trump’s rise to power at a time when his offensive, nativist policies had yet to take hold.
In his own words at trial, Barrack’s relationship to Trump has proved “disastrous.” On the stand, he testified that Trump’s racist Muslim ban and nonstop political scandals poisoned his business relationships with Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The damage unraveled his life. Barrack resigned from the real estate investment firm he founded, Colony Capital, shortly before he was arrested last year. And he briefly indicated that friendship led to his criminal trial.
Barrack has been dealing with that fallout for years. He also chaired Trump’s 2017 presidential inauguration, which was mired in corruption allegations after the Trump family diverted donor funds—an enrichment scheme that ended in a settlement with the District of Columbia attorney general.
