Very close to the former president, whom he had saved from bankruptcy and whose settlement he had organized in the White House, accused of having worked in secret for the United Arab Emirates
Another Donald Trump’s man ended up behind bars. After former campaign leader Paul Manafort, attorney Michael Cohen, councilor Roger Stone and a handful of other figures, Tuesday in California Tom Barrack was also arrested, billionaire entrepreneur and trusted friend of the former president, who in 2017 had entrusted him with the commission responsible for organizing the inauguration ceremony at the White House.
Barrack, 74, Lebanese origins and owner of the entire Costa Smeralda for a decade, accused by the Brooklyn federal court along with two other people of violating federal laws, operating as a UAE agent between April 2016 and April 2018, but also of obstructing justice and making false statements to federal agents in June 2019. This behavior, said the head of national security at the Justice Department, Mark Lesko, is none other than a betrayal of American officials, including the former president.
Leveraging his longtime relationship with Trump, which he had saved from bankruptcy and for which he raised millions of dollars during the election campaign, Barrack would try to influence American foreign policy promoting the interests of the UAE without however registering as a lobbyist or revealing to administration officials that he was working on behalf of another country.
According to the investigators, the entrepreneur – who enjoys excellent relations: Matteo Renzi told in his book Forward that Barrack and Flavio Briatore were his intermediaries with Trump – he would have started work during the 2016 primary, trying to have a speech changed during the election campaign. He would then advocated hiring in the administration just installed and supported the Emirates in the clash with Qatar, a bitter regional rival.
Barrack allegedly made telephone appointments, drafted statements, blocked meetings and, more generally, done everything possible to make American policies favorable to the home team, as he defined the Emirates in an email addressed to one of the other two indicted. The entrepreneur would not have been paid directly for his work, but a sovereign fund from the Gulf country would have invested significant sums in Colony Capital, the investment firm founded by Barrack, who resigned this year.
Just an employee of Colony, Michael Grimes, ended up behind bars with the entrepreneur. The third person indicted was Rashid Alshahhi, an Emirati citizen who lived in California until 2018, when you leave the country in a hurry three days after an FBI interrogation. Barrack and Grimes appeared in court yesterday, where the judge ruled that they will need to remain in custody while their lawyers negotiate the terms of the bail.
Barrack awaiting trial also in Sardinia for the sale of the Starwood company, owner of the Costa Smeralda, to the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar. Purchased in 2003 for 290 million euros by Prince Karim Aga Khan, founder of the consortium, Starwood included four 5-star hotels, the Porto Cervo marina, a golf club and 2,400 hectares of land. Just the difficulties in building on those lands, after a long tug-of-war with the Arzachena administration, they had convinced the businessman to sell the majority to the Emir of Qatar, his partner Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, in 2012, who paid 680 million.
Only that the shares passed from Colony Capital to the Qatar fund via Luxembourg, to evade the Italian tax authorities. The then prosecutor of Tempio Pausania accused him, along with 14 other people, of 170 million euro tax fraud: last year Barrack was indicted by the court of Tempio and is now awaiting trial.
July 21, 2021 (change July 21, 2021 | 23:11)
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