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| Tom Barrick and Donald Trump |
Tom Barrack, a Donald Trump supporter and adviser, was exonerated of a nine-count accusation that he served as an agent for the United Arab Emirates.
Mr. Barrack, who was accused of conspiring, obstructing justice, serving as a foreign government agent, and making false statements to the FBI, was cleared of all counts on Friday because the prosecution could not provide compelling evidence to support the allegations.
After seven weeks of court battles and two days of jury deliberations, the result was announced, leaving Mr. Barrack's family members in the courtroom in tears and the acquitted man hanging his head in exasperated victory.
Mr Barrack, 75, a businessman based in Los Angeles, was accused of exploiting his relationship with Mr Trump to advance UAE interests while sidelining the U.S. attorney-general.
Prosecutors presented hundreds of text messages and emails shared between Mr Barrack and the UAE and claimed he shared confidential information with them.
In his defence, Mr Barrack’s lawyer argued their client was acting as “his own man,” and never presented himself as an agent of foreign authority.
Randall Jackson, one of Mr Barrack’s lawyers, further asserted the correspondence examined bore no proof of classified intelligence.
Mr Barrack of Lebanese descent stood trial alongside his former assistant, Matthew Grimes, a 29-year-old man, who pleaded not guilty to being a foreign agent. He was also acquitted by the jury.
“This whole prosecution has been an act of misdirection,” Mr Jackson was quoted as saying in his closing argument on Tuesday by The New York Times.
“What exactly did Tom and Matthew influence? What exactly did they say that wasn’t true?”
Standing in the dock, Mr Barrack told the jury his actions aligned with his work as a businessman, building a “cultural sixth sense” from several years of dealings with the Middle East, with whom he hoped to weave “a web of tolerance.”
Prosecutors had used his words against him, saying he wrote an email to Jared Kushner, seeking millions of dollars in investment with the UAE, while advancing their interests in Washington.
“The defendants unlocked the back door of the American political system — its campaigns, its media, its government — to the U.A.E.,” Ryan Harris, one of the prosecutors, was quoted as saying in his closing argument on Tuesday by the New York Times
Meanwhile, Mr Grimes’ lawyer, Abbe Lowell, argued the correspondence was taken “completely out of context, to play gotcha.” He said the question “is not whether Matthew is guilty of any crime, but why did the prosecutors ever charge him in the first place?”