Thomas Barrack, Trump ally who chaired inaugural committee, indicted in foreign lobbying case

NEW YORK - Thomas Barrack, a longtime friend to former president Donald Trump and a billionaire businessman, was arrested Tuesday in California and charged with violating foreign lobbying laws, obstructing justice and making false statements, officials said.

Barrack, whose primary residence is in Los Angeles, was indicted on foreign lobbying charges related to his dealings with the United Arab Emirates, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday afternoon.

He and two other defendants are accused of acting and conspiring to act as agents of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018. Officials also alleged that Barrack lied to FBI agents in 2019 during an interview about his dealings with the UAE.

Barrack was in federal custody Tuesday and was expected to appear in court in Los Angeles in the afternoon. His spokesman released a statement that said: “Mr. Barrack has made himself voluntarily available to investigators from the outset. He is not guilty and will be pleading not guilty.”

The 45-page indictment charges Matthew Grimes, an employee of Barrack’s investment firm, with helping in the lobbying effort. Grimes was also arrested, officials said. A third man charged, Rashid Alshahhi, is a citizen of the UAE who lived for a time in California.

Attorneys for Barrack and Grimes did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Officials said Alshahhi remains at large; an attorney for him could not immediately be identified.

Officials said that the lobbying effort began as Trump was sewing up the GOP primary nomination in the spring of 2016 and that Barrack “took steps to establish himself as the key communications channel for the United Arab Emirates to the Campaign.”

A real estate titan who became wealthy buying out-of-favor assets, Barrack was one of Trump’s closest associates during the campaign and in office, regularly speaking to the former president, visiting him and channeling him to others, including business officials and leaders in foreign countries.

He chaired Trump’s inaugural committee, which also faced federal investigation for its spending and activities, and at one point was considered as a candidate to become ambassador to Mexico.

Barrack joins a long list of friends, campaign associates and other Trump advisers who have faced criminal charges, including his former campaign chairman; the chief financial officer at his company; Michael Cohen, the former Trump Organization lawyer; a former Trump White House strategist; and his former national security adviser. Trump later pardoned some of those figures.

Federal prosecutors say Barrack capitalized on his access to Trump and other high-ranking government officials, and his relationships with U.S. journalists, to “advance the policy goals of a foreign government without disclosing their true alliances.”

On a number of occasions, the Justice Department alleged, Barrack pushed the interests of the UAE to the Trump administration without disclosing that he was working on the country’s behalf.

In a letter to the court, federal prosecutors called Barrack “an extremely wealthy and powerful individual with substantial ties to Lebanon, the UAE, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia” and contended that he “poses a serious flight risk” because of his “vast financial resources and access to a private aircraft on which he regularly travels internationally.”

They said Barrack has “deep and longstanding ties to countries that do not have extradition treaties with the United States.”

But the same letter also notes that prosecutors could envision a bail package for Barrack that imposes strict conditions upon his release from custody.

Barrack helped rescue Trump’s business empire decades ago and was a top fundraiser for his campaign, though he declined to enter the administration. He was also a regular adviser on the Middle East, jetting through the region and talking with royalty and leaders as well as U.S. policymakers, and sought to make Trump more interested in the topic.

He was known as a consummate Trump insider in Washington circles, familiar with the former president’s mercurial moods, the ups and downs of the rotating cast of characters around him and the vagaries of Trump’s policymaking process.

Barrack was sometimes consulted by Cabinet officials and others in the Trump White House on how to manage the president. The real estate scion grew frustrated with some of Trump’s conduct in office, however, and has told others his advice regularly went unheeded.

After the election of Joe Biden, Barrack tried to convince Trump to agree to an orderly transition but failed, The Washington Post has reported.