By Luc Cohen
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Tom Barrack, the onetime fundraiser for Donald Trump who is now on trial on charges of being an illegal foreign agent, testified on Wednesday that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort asked him to solicit input from Middle Eastern officials on a speech the candidate was to deliver on energy policy in 2016.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said Barrack, the former chairman of private equity firm Colony Capital, used his influence with Trump’s election campaign and administration to push the United Arab Emirates’ interests in 2016 and 2017 without notifying the U.S. attorney general, as required by law.
Barrack’s assertion that it was not his idea to seek out Emirati input on the speech could bolster his defense that while he long sought to improve ties between the United States and several Middle Eastern countries, he never acted at Abu Dhabi’s direction or under its control – which prosecutors must prove to show he was an agent.
A lawyer for Manafort, who is not accused of wrongdoing in the case, declined to comment.
Barrack, 75, has pleaded not guilty. On Monday he denied on the stand that UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan asked him to secretly work for the Middle Eastern country in the United States when the two met in spring 2016 in the Emirates.
During the trial, which began on Sept. 19, prosecutors have shown emails indicating that government officials from OPEC member UAE provided Barrack with feedback on what Trump, then a Republican candidate, should say in the May 2016 speech on energy policy.
Barrack – who was not on the campaign, though he later chaired Trump’s inauguration – testified on Wednesday that he became involved with drafting the energy speech “by default” because Trump lacked the “think tank resources” of other candidates with more political and government experience.
But he said the idea to run a draft of the speech by officials in the Middle East came from Manafort, who had joined Trump’s campaign earlier in 2016 but was not yet its chair. Barrack’s defense lawyer showed the jury a May 2016 email in which Manafort asked Barrack if he was running a draft of the speech “by our friends where you were 10 days ago.”
Barrack said he sent a draft of the speech to an energy executive in the Emirates as well as Rashid Al-Malik, a businessman who prosecutors have charged with acting as an intermediary between Barrack and UAE officials. Al-Malik is at large.
Barrack said he wanted to ensure that Trump’s speech about seeking “energy independence” for the United States did not alienate oil-exporting allies in the Middle East. But he said he ultimately did not include the feedback that Al-Malik sent him from a UAE official in the draft.
Prosecutors are expected to cross-examine Barrack later this week.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
