The Barrack Trial: Trump Chimes In & A Young Pawn is Sacrificed

Late Sunday, the night before Trump crony Tom Barrack, who is accused of acting as a foreign agent for the UAE between 2016 and 2018, was set to take the stand in his own trial, Trump himself sounded off about it on Truth Social.

It was the first time Trump had commented on the trial since it began six weeks ago.

I had been wondering when we’d hear from the former president, especially given that, at this point, two Trump cabinet secretaries have testified: former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. One could hardly imagine that Trump wanted to be left out of that party. And sure enough, he wasn’t. But it isn’t clear that what he said was welcomed by the chief defendant.

To read my latest coverage of the trial, see “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Could the Barrack Trial Be in Part to Blame for the Cut in Saudi Oil Production? It Certainly isn’t Helping.

Yesterday, something happened very far away from the trial of Tom Barrack that is completely related to it.

MBZ, the ruler of Abu Dhabi, met with Vladimir Putin. MBZ has made no secret of the fact that he’s livid that this trial is going on—because it makes the Emiratis look as if they are in fact on trial, too. As for the Emiratis’ closest allies, the Saudis? (MBS, the Saudi crown prince, has popped up quite a bit in the trial in a not-especially-flattering light.) MBS has also turned to Putin and essentially given the finger to the Biden administration by raising the price of oil right ahead of the midterms.

Is the Barrack trial worth all this?

Read all about it at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

What Tillerson Didn’t Say—And Why It Matters

I received a lot of puzzled messages about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s testimony last week in the trial of Trump crony Tom Barrack, who has been accused of acting as an undisclosed agent for the Gulf state of the United Arab Emirates.

What was the point of Tillerson’s testimony? many people asked. How did it help the government’s argument that Barrack was an unregistered agent for the UAE? In fact, many people pointed out that it seemed possibly to hurt the government’s case.

I get into all of that at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Rex Tillerson Testifies

As I said last week, the Tom Barrack trial could shed light on what was possibly the most corrupt, self-dealing piece of the Trump presidency’s foreign policy in the Middle East—that is, the administration’s response to the 2017 blockade of Qatar. The trial’s look into the blockade involves everyone from former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Jared Kushner (whose name is on the witness list for the government, and whose testimony, in my opinion, the defense would be crazy not to commandeer).

Tillerson was brought in yesterday as a government witness and was asked about Barrack (whom he could barely remember) and also, thankfully, about Kushner (whom he definitely did remember).

For the scoop on Tillerson’s testimony and information about everything going on in the Barrack trial, see “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

“Lizzy Sex Relax” and Other Russian Aliases

Yesterday, the DOJ announced the unsealing of a grand jury indictment of a Russian oligarch, charging Oleg Deripaska, his girlfriend Ekaterina Voronina, and two other women (one a U.S. citizen who was taken into custody) with violating the sanctions that have been imposed on Deripaska and one of his corporate entities since 2018.

The indictment tells a curious labyrinthine story that raises more questions than it answers.

Find out why at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Misadventure in the Middle East

Over the weekend, I read the court transcripts of the first two days of the trial of former Trump Inaugural chair Tom Barrack, the Lebanese-American billionaire and Trump crony who has been charged with lobbying on behalf of the UAE without registering as a foreign agent (thereby profiting from his own investments with the UAE), obstruction of justice, and lying to the FBI.

Several fascinating takeaways:

Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster are government witnesses—at least according to one of Barrack’s lawyers, Randall Jackson.
Jackson also told the judge that the “key” to Barrack’s defense is a first-person eyewitness account of what actually happened behind the scenes regarding the Trump White House’s initial endorsement of the blockade of Qatar (the gulf state which houses the U.S. airbase Al Udeid) by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt.

Here’s what Jackson told the judge:

Here, the specifics of what each of the countries wanted to do is very, very particularized knowledge and in this case, it is — the actual way those events played out is key to our defense. We are actually, as Mr. Schachter previewed in his opening statement, we’re going to get into it in the course of this trial exactly what Mr. Barrack’s position was as it relates to the Qatar blockade and exactly what was the position of various people within the White House. … [T]he particulars of that, Judge, are actually key to our defense.

Now, the story of what exactly happened regarding the U.S. support of the blockade of Qatar started in June 2017 is critical for what it ought to reveal—not just about Tom Barrack and his business interests in the region, but also the business interests of Jared Kushner and Donald Trump and how they conflicted with U.S. national security in the region.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

I Go Inside the War Room with Steve Bannon & Peter Navarro at a Very MAGA Book Party So You Don’t Have To

Monday was a very unusual day. I got up early and watched the Queen’s funeral. (I am headed to D.C. tomorrow, courtesy of the British Embassy, for the service in the National Cathedral and I will write to you all about that afterwards.)

As for Monday evening: In my diary were two book parties that were not only at the same time but also in different cities. One was for The Servants of the Damned by David Enrich of the New York Times, about which I wrote last week. That was in New York, where I live, and thus was the one I was planning to go to.

The other was for Taking Back Trump’s America by Peter Navarro, China-hating economist and former Trump White House advisor. As you may know, Navarro is headed to trial in November for refusing to comply with a Congressional subpoena about January 6th, and a judge has just denied his objections, so I thought it was interesting that he’d be having a party on the rooftop of 101 Constitution Avenue, a spot above the swanky Charlie Palmer steakhouse with a stunning view of the Capitol. I wondered who was paying and who’d be going (and not going).

In Navarro’s book, he derides almost every former colleague and person he ever met—so I wondered:

A.) Who did Navarro write this book for? (He can’t have many “friends” from the Trump era. My guess is the book is for Trump, who is carefully—and weirdly—not blamed for all the “personnel” mistakes that, in Navarro’s telling, caused both the disastrous policies and the failed 2020 campaign.)

and

B.) Who would go to this book party? (Navarro writes that he is now considered such a political outlier, he cannot even get on Fox News.)

So, in the name of curiosity, I went to D.C.

Read my dispatch at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Why Do Lawyers Get Away With Things They Shouldn’t?

As I’m in the midst now of making three different podcasts for Audible that have to do with the complexities of the rule of law, the courts, and controversial high-profile lawyers, I was intrigued when David Enrich, whose work I have long admired, sent me a copy of his new book, Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice.

In the book, Enrich—the New York Times’ Business Investigations Editor—looks at Jones Day, one of the world’s largest law firms, and the ways in which, he argues, the firm has become corrupted, a shield for corporate interests and also Donald Trump. Yet, other than Enrich, no one has held Jones Day to account! Why is it that lawyers and law firms often escape unscathed from situations in which the rest of us might be held to account? It’s a pressing, important question.

You can read our conversation at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

Another Epstein Enigma

If you remain understandably puzzled over the enigma of Jeffrey Epstein’s life and death, I have a story for you about the recently deceased Steve Hoffenberg, a business associate of Epstein’s whom I knew well—but whom I understood not at all.

Listeners and watchers of “Chasing Ghislaine”—my podcast on Audible and the docu-series of the same nameI co-produced with James Patterson for discovery+—will know of my strange personal history with Hoffenberg. I first met him when he was in prison in Devens, Massachussetts, in the fall of 2002. I was at that point reporting on Epstein for Vanity Fair and, at a time when no one understood how Epstein appeared to be so wealthy, I realized that Hoffenberg, a name once well-known but forgotten in New York by then, had been a mentor of Epstein’s in the late 1980s and, further, that he had paid for Epstein’s office rent and loaned him millions of dollars for a couple of investment schemes that went belly-up. In 2002, Hoffenberg was serving the early years of a 20-year jail sentence, so I contacted him via the prison authorities, and he invited me to come and see him. I don’t think he had many visitors.

It was a meeting I’ll never forget.

Read the rest at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”

The Queen: What She Meant to Me

It’s been a while since I’ve posted my newsletter (I finally got struck with Covid), so apologies for being away. There’s much to talk about: Steve Bannon’s indictment(“What was he thinking?” has been the refrain from people close to him); the upcoming trial of Trump’s inaugural chair Tom Barrack and what it signifies; the death of Epstein associate Steve Hoffenberg, whom I knew well and who yet remained an enigma until his sad, lonely death in Derby, Connecticut. All these and more will be coming in the next few days—but, today, as someone who has dual citizenships (British and American) and who spent the first 27 years of my life in the UK, there’s only one subject to write about: the Queen.

Read my personal reflections at “Vicky Ward Investigates.”