Thread by @VickyPJWard

I was thrilled to join @danprimack on @AxiosReCap today to discuss yesterday’s arrest of Tom Barrack whose indictment raises some really, really troubling questions. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ins…

I heard the name Tom Barrack as far back as 2014 when I was writing a book about the world of New York real estate. He was a big connector between the New York players and the money in the Middle East.

I wrote a whole book—"Kushner, Inc."—around the allegation that the Trump Administration’s foreign policy was run basically as one big effort to bail out Jared Kushner’s family’s financial problems.

Tom Barrack was the man in the middle.

What’s troubling about the indictment of Barrack & co. is that it confirms in detail that—as I reported in “Kushner, Inc.”—the Trump Admin supported the blockade of Qatar led by the UAE + Saudi Arabia in the summer of '17 for all the wrong reasons—namely, alleged self-interest.

Why did the U.S. support of the blockade matter? That blockade endangered the U.S.’s own national security because the U.S. air base—Al Udeid—is IN QATAR. In other words, we hurt ourselves.

Why would we jeopardize our own security? Well, just weeks previously, as it happens, the Qataris had turned down Kushner’s dad, who desperately needed a bail-out for his troubled building, 666 Fifth Avenue. The clock was ticking. Charles Kushner needed to find $1.4 billion.

Meanwhile, sources say, Barrack had introduced Jared to MBS, the Saudi crown prince. Jared also knew MBZ, the ruler of UAE.

And Barrack was instrumental in persuading Trump to make the first U.S. state visit to Saudi Arabia, where the topic was supposed to be security in the region and cooperation among the Gulf states.

Qatar noticed that they were excluded from some meetings and, days after this meeting on cooperation—and just weeks after Jared Kushner’s family had been rebuffed by the Qataris—the Saudis and Emiratis led a blockade of Qatar.

They claimed the Qataris were harboring terrorists.

The real problem, sources claim, is that the Qataris are very rich. And they share a gas field with Iran.

Barrack’s indictment mentions that, once the blockade started, Barrack was busy talking to an unnamed WH official about how strong an ally UAE was of the U.S. Barrack needed to do this as part of an effort to stop Trump wanting to end the blockade and reconcile with Qatar.

Things only changed in the spring of 2018 after Saudi’s MBS balked when Trump asked for $4 billion to rebuild Syria, while the Emir of Qatar was far more accommodating. It seems that…money talks.

Within weeks, two things happened: The U.S. withdrew their support of the blockade and Brookfield, a real estate company whose #1 outside investor is Qatar, bailed out the Kushners in a deal that still has real estate moguls rolling their eyes. A 99-year lease paid upfront…

A spokesperson for Brookfield told me at the time that the firm’s CEO had no idea that geo-politically the Qataris needed help from the U.S.

Tom Barrack was always very transparent about his business interests in the Middle East. I was surprised by his arrest yesterday only because so many of Barrack’s activities were in plain sight.

I spoke this morning to a source who had been a senior Trump administration official and asked, “Why do you think Tom Barrack did all of this so openly?”

The source said, “He’s a real estate guy. It’s possible he just didn’t know the rules.”

As ridiculous as that sounds, it’s an accurate reflection of the Trump Administration. And, if Barrack does flip, what will he have to say about any of this?