Donald Trump

Trump Friend Sought Millions in UAE Investments While Lobbying for UAE: Prosecutor

The superseding indictment adds two new charges of making false statements to investigators to Barrack’s 2021 indictment

Tom Barrack, chairman of the inaugural committee, speaks with reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, before meeting with President-elect Donald Trump.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Thomas Barrack, a longtime friend of former President Donald Trump and chair of his 2017 inaugural committee, sought hundreds of millions of dollars in investments from the United Arab Emirates at the same time he was illegally lobbying the Trump administration on behalf of the UAE, according to a superseding indictment filed on Tuesday in New York federal court.

The superseding indictment adds two new charges of making false statements to investigators to Barrack’s 2021 indictment and provides new allegations about how, Barrack, 75, lied to federal investigators when he denied facilitating phone calls between then President-elect Trump and two Emirati officials in 2016. 

Last year Barrack and two co-conspirators were accused of “acting and conspiring to act as agents” of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018 without registering as foreign agents. Barrack was also charged with obstruction of justice and making multiple false statements to federal law enforcement agents.

For more on this story, go to NBC News.

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