(MENAFN- Your Wordsmiths) GEORGE NADER, an American adviser to the government of the United Arab Emirates, convicted sex offender, and frequent visitor to the White House during President Donald Trump’s first year in office, has pleaded guilty for his role in helping the UAE pump millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions into the U.S. political system during the 2016 presidential election, according to documents submitted in federal court last month.
Federal prosecutors disclosed in a December sentencing memo that Nader had agreed months earlier to plead guilty to a single count of felony conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government by funneling millions in donations to Hillary Clinton’s campaign and concealing the funds’ foreign origin. Nader’s plea has not been previously reported.
A lawyer for Nader did not respond to a request for comment.
Nader conspired to hide the funds “out of a desire to lobby on behalf and advance the interests of his client, the government of the United Arab Emirates,” according to the prosecutors’ sentencing memo. Nader received the money for the illegal donations from the UAE government, the memo said. The filing marks the first time that the U.S. government has explicitly accused the UAE, a close ally, of illegally seeking to buy access to candidates during a presidential election.
Nader’s guilty plea opens a new window into the efforts of the United Arab Emirates and its de facto ruler, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ, to influence the outcome of the 2016 election and shape subsequent U.S. policy in the Gulf. The government’s memo notes that Nader and Los Angeles businessperson Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja also sought to cultivate “key figures” in the Trump campaign and that Khawaja donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. It is unclear where that money came from.
Prosecutors allege that, in total, Nader transferred nearly $5 million from his UAE-based business to Khawaja, the CEO of a Los Angeles-based payment processing company. The sentencing memo details Nader and Khawaja’s efforts to disguise the money as a mundane business contract between the two. Of that amount, more than $3.5 million came from the government of the UAE and was given to Democratic political committees working to elect Clinton, according to the U.S. government, which has accused Nader, Khawaja, and six others of working together to conceal the origin of those funds. Prosecutors have not publicly accounted for what happened to the remaining $1.4 million they say Nader transferred to Khawaja.
With Nader’s guilty plea, five of the eight men charged in the alleged conspiracy have pleaded guilty; two other defendants are scheduled to stand trial this year. Khawaja fled the U.S. after the indictment. The Associated Press reported in 2020 that he was being held in Lithuania, citing police officials there and a Lithuanian lawyer representing him.
Prosecutors are seeking a five-year sentence for Nader, asking that it not begin until after he completes the 10-year sentence he is currently serving for possessing child pornography and bringing a minor to the U.S. “for the purpose of engaging in criminal sexual activity.”
Prosecutors have alleged that Nader took his instructions from the UAE crown prince and that he regularly updated MBZ on his progress as he sought to get close to Clinton. At one point, Khawaja complained that Nader and the UAE had not yet sent money to cover the costs of a Clinton fundraiser he was organizing. Nader texted that he would send note “as per HH instruction,” using an abbreviation of “his highness,” an apparent reference to MBZ.
A few days later, Nader was preparing to meet with both Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton and asked an Emirati official, almost certainly MBZ, if they could meet before he departed. “[T]raveling on Sat morning to catch up with our Big Sister and her husband: I am seeing him on Sunday and her in [sic] Tuesday Sir! Would love to see you tomorrow at your convenience…for your guidance, instruction and blessing!”
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