US media reports revealed unprecedented financial aids offered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to US former president Donald Trump, after his longtime adviser Thomas Barrack was charged as a foreign agent.
The New York writer, Michelle Goldberg, said that many of the leading figures from Trump’s 2016 campaign have been either indicted or convicted, even if they were later pardoned.
Barrack was once described by longtime Trump strategist Roger Stone — a felon, naturally — as the ex-president’s best friend. Nevertheless, Barrack’s arrest is important, Goldberg pointed out.
The New York Opinion Columnist stressed that Trump’s dealings with the Emirates and Saudi Arabia deserve to be investigated as thoroughly as his administration’s relationship with Russia.
So far, that hasn’t happened, she continued. When Robert Mueller, the former special counsel, testified before Congress, Adam Schiff, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said to him, “We did not bother to ask whether financial inducements from any Gulf nations were influencing U.S. policy, since it is outside the four corners of your report, and so we must find out.” But we have not found out.
According to Goldberg, the Barrack trial, if the case goes that far, is unlikely to answer all the outstanding questions about how Gulf money shaped Trump policy. But it could answer some.
Throughout his presidency, Trump could scarcely have been a more accommodating ally to the Emirates and to Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, was a protégé of Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
Saudi Arabia bought 2016 election for Trump
The Lebanese-American businessman Andy Khawaja has revealed that millions in illicit foreign donations were passed off as small US donations towards the 2016 Trump campaign.
Speaking The Spectator, Andy Khawaja, founder and CEO of the Allied Wallet online payment service, said that online tools sold by his firm were used to create virtual credit and gift cards that enabled the alleged donations to take place.
The tools, Khawaja claimed, were sold to George Nader – a convicted paedophile and adviser to the UAE’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed.
Using this method, Khawaja said the two Gulf states were able to pass off tens, or possibly hundreds of millions of dollars in small donations to the Trump campaign.
Under US law, contributions of less than $200 do not need to be reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Khawaja, who was indicted alongside Nader for making illegal straw donations to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, claims the information he holds has made him a target.
“First, they destroyed my business. Now they’re coming after me,” Khawaja said in the Spectator report, without specifying who he was referring to.
According to the report, two witnesses have corroborated Khawaja’s claims.
Saudi Arabia Funded Benjamin Netanyahu’s Election Campaign
Financing Trump’s election campaign was not the first of its kind. Israeli media reports revealed that Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud financed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election campaign to the tune of $80 million.
In March 2015, King Salman has deposited eighty million dollars to support Netanyahu’s campaign via a Syrian-Spanish person named Mohamed Eyad Kayali, the media reports said.
“The money was deposited to a company’s account in British Virgin Islands owned by Teddy Sagi, an Israeli billionaire and businessman, who has allocated the money to fund the campaign of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.”
Facts About Poverty in Riyadh
The Saudi Arabian Oil Company, better known as Saudi Aramco, is the world leader in oil production with a production rate of over 10 million barrels of oil per day (mbbl/day).
Saudi Arabia’s oil output came in at 10,835,000 bpd in 2021. The country possesses 17 percent of the world’s proven petroleum reserves and is the largest petroleum exporter.
Saudi Arabia has one of the world’s most powerful economies, yet social welfare programs and job growth seemingly cannot keep up with such rapid population growth. The population of Saudi Arabia was just six million in 1970 and has been expanding quickly ever since.
The Saudi family is the richest royal family in the world, with a net worth of around $1.4 trillion due to plentiful oil reserves, yet the country itself can be considered poor, with an estimated 20 percent of its people living in poverty.
