By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
BBC - Honduras - CIA Trial book - NY Mag
LITERARY EDNY, Sept 26 – The day of opening arguments in US v. Tom Barrack and Matthew Grimes the 4 train between Foley Square and Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn was broken.
Kurt Wheelock wanted to get there early and turn in his application for an Eastern District of New York press pass, a more limited one than the in-house pass he had in SDNY, before going into the overflow courtroom without even his phone in order to take notes on the case.
But the train had stalled halfway through the station. Passengers inside were banging on the windows and doors to get out. One guy carried his bag to the walkway between cars, and threw it out on the platform, started to climb over the guard rail to come after it. Kurt imagined someone running off with bag while the guy was slowed by the climbing. Always a crime about to happen.
Barrack's crime was more complicated, at least according to his lawyers.
Sure, he had lobbied for the positions of the United Arab Emirates. But couldn't that be a covered by free speech? They've gone after Louis Farrakhan for not registering as an agent of Libya and Qaddafi.
But Barrack and Grimes, they were using the more obscure Section 951. It didn't have as an element knowing that one had a duty to register, only operating as an agent of a foreign power.
Kurt knew some about the UAE, more than he would have liked. He decided to take the Brooklyn Bridge to get to the EDNY courthouse on time. He wouldn't buy it.
The indictment when Kurt read it was damning. Barrack had gotten "Emirati Official 1" - Zayed to be sure - into a Trump speech, at least for a time. He'd gotten the UAE left off the Muslim Ban. He'd helped the UAE chose their own US Ambassador from DC to Abu Dhabi, even if they would bypass him and work exclusively through Barrack.
But this Section 951 was untested, in fact had given rise to a reversal in the Eastern District of Virigina in the case of Bijan Rafiekian and Turkey.
They'd tried it on Maria Butina and now in the SDNY, in a case it seemed only Kurt was covering, US v. Girgis on Egypt. That one was a long way away from trial. But Barrack and Grimes were in the dock now.
And Kurt was there, in the overflow courtroom without his phone, taking notes: Matthew Grimes was represented by Abbe Lowell; he had been Barrack's personal assistant, getting coffee and smoothies and even babysitting his kids.
Barrack first trip to the UAE - the indictment listed one on May 1, 2016 - Grimes had not even been on it. On later trips, Grimes went but only to take the photos of the events. Sure he'd become friends with Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi and called him "bro."
But what did that prove? He called Barrack "el jefe." It was a California thing. Most telling, the argument went, that that Grimes has asked, Who's DJT?
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