I’ve been remiss in not covering the Tom Barrack scandal more closely and I think it’s kind of a big deal. We knew that Trump had corrupted American foreign policy for his own political and financial ends. But this takes it to a whole other level.
Okay, let’s jump right into the Tom Barrack scandal. We’ll break it into two parts: key takeaways from the unsealing of the case + what the implications might be. Still a lot to unpack on this story.
Key takeaways from the criminal filings:
Trump Role? President-elect Trump was directly touched by the scandal, with Barrack allegedly succeeding in arranging calls between Trump and UAE officials. Trump is actually portrayed by prosecutors as a victim, betrayed by his friend and confidante Barrack (more on this in a moment).
Hubris Kills: Barrack voluntarily talked to investigators and then allegedly lied to them, leading to a whole set of charges in addition to the violations of FARA.
Curious Timing: The charged conduct took place from 2016-18. Barrack allegedly lied to investigators in an interview in June 2019. It took more than two years after that for an indictment. Was this case bottled up in the Trump Justice Department?
How Far Does the Barrack Scandal Reach?Rotten To The Core: The contours of the case suggest a thorough and deep corruption of U.S. foreign policy under Trump. Duh, I know.
So THAT Explains It: The scandal potentially sheds new light on previously inexplicable Trump administration policy toward UAE, Saudi, and Qatar–and on other countries’ behavior toward the U.S. It doesn’t take long for word to get around that you gotta pay to play.
Who Played Whom? Was Trump really a victim of Barrack, as prosecutors say? A pro-UAE tilt and a thumb on the scale for its close ally Saudi Arabia was the order of the day in the Trump administration, and that involved a lot of people in the Trump orbit across an array of issues. Just one example:
More from Josh Kovensky:
For the odd melange of foreign policy and nakedly transactional deal-making that characterized the Trump administration, Tom Barrack was a fit.
But from what prosecutors allege in an indictment unsealed on Tuesday and an accompanying memorandum demanding that he remain in federal custody, Barrack crossed the line. In doing so as brazenly as he allegedly did, Barrack has inadvertently helped reveal how foreign policy in the Trump administration’s early years began to form.
Barrack, a longtime Trump confidante and founder of investment firm Colony Capital, has been charged with crimes related to an alleged scheme from 2016-18 to illegally lobby the Trump White House on behalf of the United Arab Emirates. Prosecutors described him as an “extremely wealthy and powerful individual” who allegedly acted at the direction of senior UAE officials.
To some in the D.C. foreign policy community, the allegations fit with some of the more surprising things that came out of the Trump administration’s approach to the Middle East.
First off, Trump came out of the gate in early 2017 hot on Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Aaron David Miller, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a longtime adviser to secretaries of state from both parties, pointed out to TPM that Trump was exceptional in that his first foreign trip was to Saudi Arabia.
“The Emiratis – and Tom Barrack was the embodiment of this – the Emiratis probably couldn’t believe how easy it was to establish relations with this administration,” Miller said. “They were pushing on a very, very open door.”
Hussein Ibish, a scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, told TPM that UAE and Saudi leaders had “recognized” something of themselves in the Trump administration.
“They saw in him an American president who conducted politics in a way that they recognized the most,” Ibish said. “And he was looking to sell stuff, and they were looking to buy it, so there was a meeting of the minds there.”
Ibish added that for the first year of the Trump administration, it was unclear to many foreign nations who in Washington they should call to gain access and influence in the White House.
Barrack, Ibish added, appears to have filled that role for the UAE.
“It’s not just who do you call, but who can call on your behalf – that’s where someone like Barrack becomes a useful lobbyist, and an actual advocate,” Ibish said.
It’s not clear how much influence Barrack actually wielded within the White House, and how many policies Trump would have pursued regardless of the influence of his longtime friend and confidante.
Prosecutors, for example, detail how Barrack tried to prevent any U.S. action after the UAE and Saudi Arabia embarked on a political and economic embargo of Qatar in October 2017.
“They clearly used Barrack to try to scuttle any high-level effort by the Trump administration to get involved in moderating or brokering the politico-economic siege,” Miller said, adding that he was unsure if Trump, freed of Barrack’s influence, could have made a difference in the matter.
“It probably did influence policy to a certain degree, but since that rift was unhealable in 2017, I’m not sure it would have mattered if Trump, the self-styled greatest negotiator in history, had gotten involved,” Miller added.
From that standpoint, Barrack was less a cause of the Trump administration’s willingness to acquiesce than he was a symptom.
When it came to the murder of Saudi dissident Jamal Khashoggi, for example, it’s unclear whether that may have been an example of anyone’s specific influence or instead general willingness born of the Trump administration’s own nihilism when it came to the idea of any interest greater than a whim of the moment.
“I spent 25 years in government, I believe there is something called the national interest,” Miller said. “But there was no effort to hide the fact that the national interest was being willfully, preternaturally subordinated to Trump’s domestic politics, his business interests, and his own sense of personal vanity.”
Trump and his cornies didn’t invent this sort of thing. But they sure as hell are the first one’s to so blatantly make a profit at it.