This is shocking news. A major Trump figure, Tom Barrack, was just arrested for “illegal lobbying,” and there would only be one person he might “lobby,” his old friend, Donald Trump. From NBC News [1]:
Tom Barrack, who chaired former President Donald Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee, was arrested Tuesday on charges that he unlawfully influenced the foreign policy positions of the campaign and administration to advance the interests of the United Arab Emirates, the Justice Department said.
In a seven-count indictment, unsealed in a New York federal court, Barrack, 74, and two others are accused of “acting and conspiring to act as agents” of the United Arab Emirates between April 2016 and April 2018. Barrack was also charged with obstruction of justice and making multiple false statements to federal law enforcement agents.
Hmmm, where have we heard about the UAE before… It is so hard to track! This is a tough one. Wait! We know, because we reported on it in December in the “Goodbye to Jared” [2] series. (We aren’t geniuses, we just fake it well.)
Instead, the Kushners have struggled to cover their debt on the troubled building since shortly after its purchase on the eve of the financial crisis. As Jared Kushner’s father-in-law, Donald J. Trump, was running for President, the Kushners were pitching Qatari investors to help bail out the building.
And just weeks after his father, Charles reportedly failed to reach a deal with Qatar’s minister of finance, Jared Kushner, in his capacity as a senior adviser to President Trump, reportedly played a central role in supporting a blockade of Qatar by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Kushner never disclosed his meeting with Saudi Arabia and the UAE on the blockade to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the time. Later, a financial company tied to Qatar brokered an especially valuable deal to rescue the Kushner Companies’ property at 666 Fifth Avenue.
No one, and we mean no one wanted any part of refinancing that damned building. It was such a poor original agreement that the UAE had to get something out of it, and though Qataris eventually did the refinancing, the Saudi, UAE, and Qatar blockade was all wrapped up together. During the period, MBS got a hold of some information that allowed him to round up and jail dissidents, including family members (People suspect Jared passed along American intelligence), the UAE may have gotten what it wanted out of the blockade, and the Qataris might have been left to pay the bill, refi Jared’s building. This is speculation.
But without regard to any of the above, the only person that Barrack could have been “lobbying” for the UAE is Trump. Lobbying Congress on behalf of a foreign nation doesn’t make a lot of sense…
Someone is targeted and Ivanka and Jared look to be right in the middle. Bad news, because as we said back in December, Jared has blood on his hands on that one.
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Peace, y’all
Jason
[email protected] and on Twitter @JasonMiciak