Tom Barrack, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, was acquitted of all federal foreign lobbying charges in a Brooklyn court on Friday.
Jurors deliberated for about 13 hours starting Wednesday.
Barak was acquitted of acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the US and of conspiring to be an unregistered foreign agent in the US.
Barak, his former employee Matthew Grimes and an Emirati businessman named Rashid Al Malik were indicted last year and accused of acting as a secret back channel for the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors allege that Al Malik was operating undercover in the US as an agent of the UAE government. Al Malik fled the US shortly after his 2018 FBI interview and remains at large.
Grimes was acquitted of both charges against him: acting as an unregistered foreign agent in the US and conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent in the US.
Barak also faced one count of obstruction of justice and six counts of making false statements. He was acquitted of all seven of these charges.
Prosecutors alleged that Barak offered Emirati officials access to Trump’s 2016 campaign, which he told Al Malik in an email he “staffed” after he nominated Paul Manafort for a role. In return, prosecutors said, UAE-controlled sovereign wealth funds pumped $374 million into projects by Colony Capital, Barrack’s company. Barak’s defense lawyer, Randall Jackson, claimed the amount was insignificant – “less than 1%” of the company’s balance sheet.
During the trial, Trump posted on his Truth Social account calling Barak a “highly respected businessman” and saying he did not believe he was a foreign agent of the UAE. Barack is a longtime friend of Trump, served as chairman of the Presidential Inauguration Committee and advised him as President.
Abbe Lowell, Grimes’ lawyer, said during his closing arguments that prosecutors had not shown evidence that Grimes made a deal with a UAE official to work as a foreign agent.
“One cannot become an agent by mistake or accident. He has to do it knowingly and on purpose,” Lowell said.
The nearly two-month trial included references to Trump himself and some of his former cabinet members. Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson testified that he never asked Barack to conduct diplomacy on behalf of the United States or pass any information to a foreign government.
The defense team also subpoenaed former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to testify about a meeting with Barrack in June 2017, when Barrack disagreed with Trump’s public comments supporting the embargo preventing goods from entering Qatar.
The defense sought to refute the prosecution’s claim that Barak was actually a secret channel of support for the UAE, noting that the UAE was one of several countries to cut diplomatic ties with Qatar.
“He came in with the idea of telling me that he thought the President had made a mistake in supporting the exclusion, and he went over his rationale as to why,” Mnuchin testified. “His position was clearly pro-Qatar.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
