Wealthy investor Thomas “Tom” Barrack is at the center of the latest court case to roil former president Donald Trump’s inner circle.
Barrack is a close investor friend of Trump and is being accused by the U.S. government of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, lobbying the then-president on the Emirates’ behalf over several years and feeding confidential information back to the Middle Eastern nation.
The case adds to the mounting pile of legal woes afflicting the Trump camp.
In 2016, Barrack wrote to someone in a foreign government, “Trump is the man” as Trump’s likelihood of being named the Republican nominee for president began to become a certainty. Barrack added, cryptically, that someone called “HH” should be ready to travel.
Prosecutors have said that the “HH” in Barrack’s email referred to His Highness Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the current leader of the United Arab Emirates, and that Barrack was trying to secretly and illegally trade his access to Trump’s ear for the graces of the Emirati government and its vast pool of investment money.
The trial began last month in New York. Barrack denies the charges against him.
Trump’s inner circle is flooded with legal cases. The list is long and includes Congress’s hearings on the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, a federal investigation into whether Trump illegally kept classified White House documents after he left office, a New York state lawsuit accusing him of fraudulent business practices, and a New York state prosecution of Steve Bannon, the former Trump adviser, for allegedly defrauding people who donated to a campaign to build a wall on the Mexican border.
The prosecution of Barrack as an alleged semi-spy for the Emiratis is yet another scandal involving foreign influence on Trump.
Trump’s administration and campaign were already dogged by impeachment proceedings and special investigations over alleged collusion with Russia and inappropriate pressure on Ukraine.
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