Tuesday, July 27, 2021 | 2 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
Once upon a time, it would have been huge news if the chairman of the former president’s inaugural committee was indicted on charges of acting as an agent of a foreign power.
Donald Trump’s presidency, however, has left us with scandal inflation. At this point many of the leading figures from his 2016 campaign have been either indicted or convicted, even if they were later pardoned. The CFO of Trump’s company was charged with tax fraud less than a month ago.
So when billionaire real estate investor Tom Barrack, one of Trump’s biggest fundraisers, was arrested last week and charged with acting as an unregistered agent of the United Arab Emirates along with other felonies, it might have seemed like a dog-bites-man story. Barrack was once described by longtime Trump strategist Roger Stone — another felon, naturally — as the ex-president’s best friend. If you knew nothing else about Barrack but that, you might have guessed he’d end up in handcuffs.
Nevertheless, Barrack’s arrest is important. Trump’s dealings with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia deserve to be investigated as thoroughly as his administration’s relationship with Russia. So far that hasn’t happened. When Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified before Congress, Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said to him, “We did not bother to ask whether financial inducements from any Gulf nations were influencing U.S. policy, since it is outside the four corners of your report, and so we must find out.” But we have not found out.
A Barrack trial, if the case goes that far, is unlikely to answer all the outstanding questions about how Gulf money shaped Trump policy. But it could answer some.
Let’s recall that Russia was not the only nation to send emissaries to Trump Tower during the presidential campaign offering election help. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian election interference discusses an August 2016 Trump Tower meeting whose attendees included Donald Trump Jr.; George Nader, then an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, the Emirates’ de facto ruler; and Joel Zamel, owner of an Israeli private intelligence company, Psy-Group. (Nader is now in prison for child sex trafficking and possession of child pornography.)
“Zamel asked Trump Jr. whether Psy-Group’s conducting a social media campaign paid for by Nader would present a conflict for the Trump campaign,” said the Senate report. “According to Zamel, Trump Jr. indicated that this would not present a conflict.”
Zamel told the committee that his company never actually performed such work. “Nonetheless, as described below, Zamel engaged in work on behalf of Nader, for which he was paid in excess of $1 million,” said the report. Zamel claimed the payment was for a postelection social media analysis, all copies of which were ostensibly deleted.
If the allegations in the Barrack indictment are true, it means that while an adviser to the Emirates was offering the Trump campaign election help, an Emirati agent was also shaping Trump’s foreign policy, even inserting the country’s preferred language into one of the candidate’s speeches. Prosecutors say Barrack told a high-level figure they call “Emirati Official 2” that he had staffed the Trump campaign. (It was Barrack who recommended Paul Manafort, later to be convicted of multiple felonies, to Trump.) When an Emirati official asked Barrack if he had information about senior Trump appointees, Barrack allegedly replied, “I do,” and said they should talk by phone. He is said to have traveled to the Emirates to strategize with its leadership about what they wanted from the administration.
In the early months of the Trump administration, prosecutors say another alleged Emirati agent named Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi — also indicted last Tuesday — texted Barrack: “Our ppl wants u to help. They were hoping you can officially run the agendas.” According to the indictment, Barrack replied, “I will!” Later, Barrack reportedly called Alshahhi “the secret weapon to get Abu Dhabi’s plan initiated” by Trump.
At the time, several Arab countries, including the Emirates, were blockading Qatar. Even as the Pentagon and the State Department attempted to remain neutral in the crisis, Trump sent tweets that appeared to support the blockade and even take credit for it.
Throughout his presidency, Trump could scarcely have been a more accommodating ally to the Emirates and to Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was a protégé of Prince Mohammed bin Zayed. Trump’s first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia. He tore up the Iran deal, hated by Gulf Arab leaders. Of Trump’s 10 presidential vetoes, five dealt with issues of concern to the Emirates and Saudi Arabia. More significantly, he overrode Congress’ attempt to end U.S. military involvement in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia and the Emirates were fighting on one side of a brutal civil war. According to Bob Woodward’s book “Rage,” Trump boasted that he “saved” the Saudi crown prince after the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi elicited widespread outrage.
There is no reason to attribute all of Trump’s solicitude to Barrack. Trump likes and admires gaudy dictators, and has his own financial interests in the Emirates. Barrack introduced Jared Kushner to some of his Gulf associates, but Kushner had his own reasons for pursuing alliances with them, particularly his push to get more Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel. Still, if a member of Trump’s inner circle turns out to have been an Emirati agent, that’s a big deal. It’s a reminder of all we still don’t know about what went into the foreign policy of the most corrupt presidency in U.S. history.
In June 2018, The New York Times reported that Barrack’s company “has raised more than $7 billion in investments since Trump won the nomination,” about a quarter from either the Emirates or Saudi Arabia. Barrack stepped down from his executive role at that company in March, but recently he told Bloomberg Television that Emiratis would be among his investors in a new venture involving “mega resorts” and “the hospitality industry as it relates to wellness, as it relates to health.” Americans deserve to know if Barrack essentially sold his investors influence over the foreign policy of the United States.
The market for Trump scandal may be glutted, but when it comes to the role of foreign money in the last administration, there’s no shortage of mysteries.
Michelle Goldberg is a columnist for The New York Times. This column originally appeared here.
