Barak, once a big name in the real estate investment world, is accused of abusing his closeness to then-President Trump to bankroll Arab rights interests. Jurors on Tuesday afternoon are set to begin deliberating whether Barack broke laws against secret foreign lobbying. In his closing remarks, federal prosecutor Ryan C. Harris summarized emails and text messages describing how Barrack made himself a spokesman for the UAE on national television news programs, arranged friendly meetings with the Trump White House and even and was tweaking the GOP platform at the 2016 Republican National Convention. The proposals had such flamboyant titles as, “Gaining influence in the United States” and “Proposal to strengthen the influence of the UAE in the US”. In a text message, Barak even defended how he was positioned to help the UAE capital, noting that it would “give ABU DHABI more strength”. “Ladies and gentlemen, you cannot get any more than these documents of the defendant’s intent,” Harris told jurors. “He understands his role. He understands his place in UAE business… they would have an inside guy.” The feds say Barak’s business meeting with a UAE spy chief on his boat, his lavish dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud and his constant communications with an Emirati contact all had a huge pot of gold. at the edge of the rainbow: access to sovereign wealth funds of the Gulf States. “We hit the jackpot in the Middle East,” Barrack emailed in 2017. Years of cheerleading in the United Arab Emirates brought $374 million to Colony Capital, the real estate investment firm Barrack founded and led until his abrupt resignation last year. Barak, now 75, faces a prison sentence – a rare sight for a modern-day Master of the Universe. On Tuesday morning, defense attorneys presented an alternative interpretation of all the seized communications. He was a billionaire in the sunset of his life, they said, trying to use his outsized position of privilege to simply bring peace to the Middle East. Emails and text messages were removed from the context. There was nothing wrong with Barrack casually supporting his business partners. And the reward didn’t even directly benefit Barrack, they argued. After all, Colony Capital was such a huge investment firm that the inflow of money from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia constituted only one-tenth of its total portfolio. Defense lawyer Randall Jackson told jurors it “makes no sense” that after a “storied career” Barrack would say, “in my final chapter, I will be involved in serious crimes.” He said the billionaire was doing nothing wrong when he met with Emiratis to discuss business ventures and politics – or to defend the UAE for its efforts to fight al Qaeda. “What did he say that wasn’t true?” Jackson asked. However, the dozens of messages and emails seized by the FBI painted a dark picture. Barak would often appear on TV and then immediately have his personal assistant check in with their Emirati “friend” to make sure “the boss” back in the UAE was happy with the way things were going. The boss was “Sheikh Tahnoon” bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s top national security adviser. Communication ranged from awkward to annoying. At one point, Barack’s aide Matthew Grimes – who also faces criminal charges – had to apologize after the billionaire failed to reveal the name of an Emirati official during a televised news interview. All of this continued as Barack threw his support behind his personal friend, Donald Trump, the long-shot Republican presidential candidate at the time. Barack used his long history of making odd but spectacularly successful bets to rally Wall Street support behind Trump, which helped Trump win in 2016. Barak’s access made him even more valuable to the Emirates. The emails showed how friend Trump constantly sought their approval. For example, before the financier drew up an energy plan for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, he sent multiple versions of the plan to Rashad Al Malik, an Emirati businessman whom the feds portrayed as an intermediary between Barack and UAE spies. And when the GOP was going to address the 9/11 terrorist attacks during its national convention that year, Barack made sure a specific line mentioning Saudi Arabia was cut. If convicted of obstruction of justice, Barak faces 20 years behind bars. The criminal charge of unregistered foreign lobbying and multiple counts of lying to FBI agents also carry a decade or more in prison.
