After hinting that some charges may be dropped in the foreign lobbying trial of longtime Donald Trump ally Tom Barack, a federal judge on Tuesday let the charges stand and the case could soon go to trial.   

  U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan told the court on Monday that he is “watering down some things” and is considering not allowing some charges against Barack and co-defendant and former aide Matthew Grimes to remain in court.   

  But in the end, Cogan didn’t drop a count.   

  Instead, Cogan barred prosecutors from telling jurors that they could find Grimes guilty of acting as an unregistered foreign agent if they just felt there was enough evidence that he aided and abetted someone else.  Kogan had said that some of the government’s theories were “right on the line between minimally permissible interference and impermissible speculation”.   

  During closing arguments on Tuesday, a prosecutor characterized Barak as a duplicitous businessman who privately offered Emirati officials access to the Trump campaign and administration.  In return, prosecutors said, he received hundreds of millions of dollars in investments in his company.   

  “Mr. Barack sold the UAE because of his political connections,” Assistant US Attorney Ryan Harris said.   

  Barak, Grimes and an Emirati businessman named Rashid Al Malik were indicted last year and accused of acting as a secret conduit 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.   

  “There are two Tom Barracks: a man who talks about weaving a web of tolerance and understanding, and the man who he really is when the cameras are off and no one is watching and the facade has been stripped away.  A man who is ultimately just leveraging his access with the Trump campaign and the Trump administration to make money and exercise power,” Harris said.   

  Barak’s lawyer responded by calling the foreign lobbying case a “wildcard.”   

  Defense attorney Randall Jackson compared his client to Japanese Americans who were held in internment camps during World War II by the US government for fear they would not be loyal to the US.   

  “It was done on the theory that these people could possibly, just maybe, be involved in something like espionage.  Or that they could possibly, perhaps, be subject to the direction and control of the Japanese government,” Jackson said.   

  Jackson said Barak made no attempt to hide his relationship with Al Malik and even disclosed meetings with him in an official government document when he was being considered for a government position.   

  “He’s Instagram official with him,” Jackson said.  “In no way is she trying to hide the relationship with him.”   

  “There is no evidence to support the theory they have come up with,” Jackson said.   

  Barak, who took the stand for nearly a week to testify in his own defense, denied that he offered his access to influential people in the US to Emirati officials and pointed out that he told Trump while he was president not to support the 2017 blockade against Qatar, a view that would not have been in the UAE’s interest at the time.   

  “I never did anything wrong,” he testified.   

  Harris alleged that sovereign wealth funds controlled by the United Arab Emirates funneled $374 million to Colony Capital, Barrack’s firm, where Grimes also worked and earned between $400,000 and $600,000 a year.   

  “And in return, the UAE has unlocked its wallet for the accused,” Harris said.  “After we haven’t received a penny from these sovereign wealth funds, not a penny from these sovereign wealth funds, for the past eight years.”   

  Both Barrack and Grimes each face one count of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government and one count of conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign government.  Barak also faces one count of obstruction of justice and four counts of making false statements.