Donald Trump’s Best Friend and Inauguration Chair, Thomas Barrack, Arrested on Federal Charges

Back in 2015, when Donald Trump was merely a candidate for office, he made a bold claim, telling The Washington Post, “I’m going to surround myself only with the best and most serious people.” It’s a claim that would have held up if “best and most serious people” were actually code for “a collection of fuck-ups, racists, and criminals,” though of course Trump meant “best” in the actual sense. Instead, in the years since, more than half a dozen of the 45th president’s associates have been arrested or convicted of a crime, and apparently, the number continues to grow!

On Tuesday morning, billionaire Thomas Barrack, one of Trump’s closest friends, was arrested in the Los Angeles area and charged with violating foreign-lobbying laws, making false statements, and obstructing justice. According to the Post, the financier was indicted on charges related to his dealings in the United Arab Emirates. He and two other defendants have reportedly been accused of “acting and conspiring to act as agents of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018.” Officials also claimed that Barrack lied to FBI agents in 2019 while being questioned about his dealings with the UAE.

The 45-page indictment charges Matthew Grimes, an employee of Barrack’s investment firm, with helping in the lobbying effort. Grimes was also arrested, officials said. A third man charged in the scheme, Rashid Alshahhi, is a citizen of the UAE who lived for a time in California. Attorneys for Barrack and Grimes did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. Officials said Alshahhi remains at large; an attorney for him could not immediately be identified.

Officials said that the lobbying effort began as Trump was sewing up the GOP primary nomination in the spring of 2016 and that Barrack “took steps to establish himself as the key communications channel for the United Arab Emirates to the Campaign.” A real estate titan who became wealthy buying out-of-favor assets, Barrack was one of Trump’s closest associates during the campaign and in office, regularly speaking to the former president, visiting him, and channeling him to others, including business officials and leaders in foreign countries…. Federal prosecutors say Barrack capitalized on his access to Trump and other high-ranking government officials, and his relationships with U.S. journalists, to “advance the policy goals of a foreign government without disclosing their true alliances.” On a number of occasions, the Justice Department alleged, Barrack pushed the interests of the UAE to the Trump administration without disclosing that he was working on the country’s behalf.

On a seemingly unrelated but crucial note, Barrack chaired Trump’s 2016 inaugural committee, which is currently under criminal investigation by D.C. attorney general Karl Racine. Racine sued the Trump Organization, the Trump International Hotel, and the inaugural committee in January 2020, alleging the groups funneled large amounts of inauguration cash into the first family’s pockets via the hotel. Both Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump have sat for depositions related to the probe, seeming to have misled investigators about their involvement in the planning of the inaugural events. After the lawsuit was filed, the Trump Organization said in a statement that it was “a clear P.R. stunt” and that “the rates charged by the hotel were completely in line with what anyone else would have been charged for an unprecedented event of this enormous magnitude and were reflective of the fact that [the] hotel had just recently opened, possessed superior facilities, and was centrally located on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Barrack joins a long, ignoble list of Trump associates, advisers, and friends who’ve found themselves on the wrong side of the law. In April, Rudy Giuliani had his home and office raided as part of criminal investigation into his Ukraine dealings. Giuliani is also reportedly the subject of a DOJ investigation into alleged foreign lobbying for Turkey. (Giuliani has denied lobbying on behalf of both Ukraine and Turkey.)

And then, obviously, there’s Trump, who is the subject of no fewer than four criminal investigations and whose company and CFO were hit with more than a dozen charges earlier this month, all of which they pleaded not guilty to. At the moment Trump has not been personally charged with any crimes—but that may change!

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