Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators have questioned an adviser to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, the New York Times reported Saturday, in addition to questioning others about possible attempts by the UAE to buy political influence in the United States.
The Times’ report, which cited unnamed people familiar with knowledge of the discussions, comes on the heels of a Washington Post report that at least four countries — including the UAE — discussed ways they could influence White House adviser Jared Kushner by exploiting his “complex business arrangements, financial difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience,” in the Post’s words.
And NBC News reported Friday that Mueller is probing whether Kushner’s business-related discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition later affected White House policy.
The Times’ story focused on individual connections between the White House and the UAE: specifically, a Lebanese-American businessman, George Nader, and his role as an adviser to Mohammad, the deputy supreme commander of the Emirates’ military and the country’s de facto ruler, according to the paper.
In one instance, the Times reported, Nader received a memo later obtained by the paper detailing a meeting between Trump and one of his fundraisers, Elliot Broidy. According to the memo, the Times said, the pair discussed Broidy’s private security company, which has hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts with the UAE, and several other topics.
Broidy reportedly encouraged Trump to meet with Mohammad outside the White House in an “informal setting,” but White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster shot the idea down, the Times said, citing the memo.
According to the same memo — which a spokesperson for Broidy told the Times “had been stolen through sophisticated hacking,” in the Times’ words — Broidy encouraged Trump to fire Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
In one of his most public disagreements with Trump, Tillerson in June called on several Gulf states including the UAE to lift a blockade of Qatar. The Gulf states, and Trump, argued the blockade was justified by what they said was Qatar’s support of terrorism.
Nader “made frequent” trips to the White House in the administration’s early months and met often with former chief strategist Steve Bannon and adviser Jared Kushner, the Times reported, citing unnamed people familiar with the conversations.
The Times’ sources said Mueller’s team has asked interviewees about Nader’s role in White House policy-making. The paper noted Axios first reported on Mueller’s focus on Nader in January.
Nader and Broidy met sometime around Inauguration Day 2017, the Times reported, citing unnamed people familiar with their relationship. After that, Nader introduced Broidy to the crown prince. And after that, the Times’ sources said, Broidy signed several hundred million dollars worth of contracts with the UAE. Broidy sent Nader the memo covering his meeting with Trump by Oct. 6, the Times reported.
In a related story, scientists confirmed that the universe is still expanding more quickly than we can see.
Cross-posting from another thread.
Mueller is expanding his inquiry to include a Lebanese-American foreign lobbyist type: George Nader (no relation to Ralph as far as I know). In fairness, Axios had parts of this story a month earlier, so I cited it as well (to NYT’s credit, they too cited it).
Mueller is looking at Nader as among witnesses regarding,
So, to put it in perspective, it’s about: 1. illegal campaign donations during the 2016 election year directed by a foreign government, 2. Bribery induced influence in policy making. That’s explosive.
I’ve long suspected that a lot of illegal foreign money flowed through the Trump campaign, their various entities and even the GOP. Up until this point, I believed it was largely from Russian backed sources and coordinated through Manafort and Gates (in part b/c of the Steele Dossier) and success fees (share of Rosneft sale). However, this article leads me to believe that I’ve been setting my sights too low. The corruption exhibited by the Trump crew extends way back to the campaign itself, all the way forward to the present day, and potentially involves every place where they have business interests or have shopped for money: Russia, China, UAE, Israel, Panama, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India.
So, not only are we talking about illegal campaign finance donations, but we’re also talking about a series of bribes and inducements engineered and offered in exchange for policy changes. It isn’t just about Russian sanctions. It’s about geopolitics in the Arabian peninsula; it’s about Chinese priorities; it’s about that crazy Flynn nuke deal (also tied to sanctions); and it’s about building Trump properties in multiple countries.
It also shows that that there is real criminal liability exposure for the Trump family that is, to a certain extent, independent from Russia. Sen. Chris Murphy bluntly made that case today on This Week, stating that if the reason for the abrupt policy change supporting Saudi Arabia and the UAE against Qatar was because of Qatar’s decision not to approve financing for Kushner (and I would add the corresponding inducements (read: bribes) offered to the Trump campaign/organization by the UAE (and possibly Saudi Arabia) as alleged in this article), then that’s all you need to push a criminal inquiry, indictments and impeachment.
George Nader is a story that is far too familiar in the Trump era. A guy who established some diplomatic bona fides as a back channel resource in the Clinton years between the Clinton Administration and Syria appeared to change his focus more to the much more lucrative field of foreign lobbying, taking advantage of Bush’s war in Iraq to work for Erik Prince and Blackwater and build his own consulting practice with the Iraqi government and other regional governments, including the UAE. (As an aside, I didn’t see any indication that Nader has a FARA registration).
Although, Nader and Prince know each other, Nader’s connection to both the UAE and to Trump is a lot stronger and, based on my read, independent of Prince. Prince’s connection to Trump is through Bannon, so he’s always knocking on the door but not quite in Trumpland. Nader has become a strongly linked advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed of the UAE royal family. He is also strongly connected to top Trump fundraiser Elliot Broidy. This is the same Broidy who was exposed for discussing a deal with the embattled Malaysian businessman, Jho Low, who is being investigated in the 1MDB scandal by the DOJ, where Low (and other people close to the Malaysia PM Razak) stole $700 mill from a gov’t backed development company and laundered a portion of the money into US real estate. Broidy was offered, in one draft of their agreement, a big $75 million pay day if he could make the the DOJ investigation go away (really dumb lawyers who allowed something like that to get on paper btw).
Broidy also owns a big security firm, Cirincus, that does a lot of business in the US and the UAE. That firm would be directly competitive with Erik Prince, who shops similar security type arrangements trying to recreate the magic of Blackwater through his Frontier Security Group. Broidy has been in legal trouble before, pleading guilty to providing illegal gifts to the NYS pension fund in exchange for the fund investing its large assets in companies that he owned. You know…typical Trumpist corruption.
So, what this story suggests is that the UAE placed bets on Trump while he was a candidate. Nader was the key go between for the Trump campaign/administration and the UAE gov’t. The Crown Prince of UAE visited NY in December 2016 after months of intermediary contact. That meeting in NY (which Susan Rice outed) set the stage for an advancement of the relationship, where the UAE was principally interested in support for the Saudi prince MBS and also a tougher line against Qatar. Trump/Kushner were interested in financing. Bannon was interested in remaking global alliances.
In my view, Erik Prince was dying to get in on these convos (as he lives part time in the UAE and knows many in the UAE gov’t). He hung around Trump Tower a lot in December, going through Bannon, who at the time, had a good relationship with Kushner. One agenda item from that meeting was the follow-up in the Seychelles arranged by the UAE between Russia and the US intermediaries to discuss sanctions relief in exchange for softening support for Iran and perhaps an incentive of Flynn’s crazy nuclear reactor expansion deal which would have heavy Russian involvement. Prince, I suspect, lobbied Bannon to be sent as the intermediary, and both Nader and the Trump crew agreed, because the US would need an American at that meeting who knew players in this space.
What all this means is that the Trump crew had a long-term plan to get Russian help to rig the election in their favor and, on a parallel track, use their political power and influence to gain international financing and more lucrative investment opportunities in exchange for major policy shifts. Nowhere in this mix were the interests of the United States considered the sole and primary concern. The Trumps operated as if their financial interests were the same as America’s national interests and vice versa. This is exactly what anti-bribery laws, conflicts of interest laws, the emoluments clause, and the anti-bribery portion of the impeachment clause were intended to stop.
We’ve got a big problem on our hands, and Robert Mueller may have exposed a very important and under appreciated part of the Trump crew move to capture the machinery of the US government and leverage it for their financial benefit on a global scale. They have natural allies in authoritarians and wealthy global elites.
I hear Jared has a GoFundMe site for knee pads, anyone have a link to it?
Face it, Trump came in and immediately hung a for sale sign on the front gate.
Josh is summing things up nicely.
The thing about what Trump and his family has done is it has been executed by morons. There is zero subtlety to their actions. They may as well have neon signs up with “Deals to be Made” flashing in magenta. But like his kid’s slicked back hair, they think they have sooooo cool going about their business. They are truly without any sense of the country in this. Soul-less in their entire world view. And that last point is why they are going to lose and lose big. A good portion of this country has not bought into that stateless and greedy view point. But damn, they are making a mess out of everything while they figure out they are no where as good as they think they are.
Another reason why they should not be given nice things to play with - like the government of our country.