Stephanie Winston Wolkoff says Barrack arrest could 'end' Trump family

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An ex-friend of Melania Trump said DailyMail.com ‘this could be the beginning of the end’ of the Trumps after Donald’s former 2017 inaugural committee was arrested on Tuesday

Thomas Barrack, 74, is facing federal charges in Los Angeles for illegally lobbying on behalf of the United Arab Emirates during the 2016 campaign and later while Trump was in the White House.

He was hit with a seven-count indictment relating to trying to push the UAE’s agenda in the US and shape the foreign policy of the previous administration.

Stephanie Winston Wilkoff, author of ‘Melania and Me,’ told DailyMail.com, ‘This is big news, I need time to process it.’

‘This could be the beginning of the end for all of them,’ she said. ‘Tom is so integral to everything in Trump’s universe that it could affect the Trump family in a very significant way.’

Winston Wolkoff was Barrack’s Senior Advisor on the Presidential Inaugural Committee and as she wrote in her #1 New York Times bestseller ‘Melania & Me: The Rise & Fall Of My Friendship With The First Lady’, where she repeatedly raised concerns and red flags about the inconsistencies in the numbers.

Barrack is the founder of the private equity firm Colony Capital, though stepped down as the company’s chief executive in 2020, and in April resigned as executive chairman.

He is a close friend of Trump, a relationship that dates back to the 1980s.

‘He is the only person I know who the president speaks to as a peer,’ Trump’s longtime political adviser Roger Stone said of Barrack in a 2018 New York Times report.

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The chair of Donald Trump’s inaugural committee in 2017, Thomas Barrack, was on Tuesday arrested on federal charges in Los Angeles for illegally lobbying on behalf of the United Arab Emirates during his campaign

Barrack, 74, (pictured left at the 2017 inauguration) was hit with seven-count indictment relating to trying to push the UAE’s agenda and shape the foreign policy of the administration

A spokesperson for Trump did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com.

Barrack’s attorney, Matthew Herrington, did not immediately return an email from the Associated Press seeking comment.

Barrack, pictured at the 7th Biennial UNICEF Ball on April 14, 2018, with a guest was a close friend to Donald Trump

Barrack was due to appear at an initial appearance in federal court in Southern California.

Barrack was charged with acting as an unregistered foreign agent, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and making multiple false statements during a June 20, 2019 interview with federal law enforcement agents.

The charges were brought in Brooklyn.

Additionally, Matthew Grimes, 27, of Aspen, Colorado, and Rashid Sultan Rashid Al Malik Alshahhi, aka Rashid Al Malik, 43, a UAE national, are accused of acting and conspiring to act as agents of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018, the Department of Justice said in a release.

‘The defendants repeatedly capitalized on Barrack’s friendships and access to a candidate who was eventually elected President, high-ranking campaign and government officials, and the American media to advance the policy goals of a foreign government without disclosing their true allegiances,’ Acting Assistant Attorney General Mark Lesko said in a release.

Lesko characterized the alleged conduct as ‘nothing short of a betrayal of those officials in the United States, including the former President.’

‘Through this indictment, we are putting everyone – regardless of their wealth or perceived political power – on notice that the Department of Justice will enforce the prohibition of this sort of undisclosed foreign influence,’ the statement said.

In a letter to the LA-based judge, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York called Barrack a ‘serious flight risk’ since he has access to private aircrafts, and asked for steep bail conditions.

In 2013, Forbes estimated that Barrack’s net worth was $1 billion.

In 2010, Barrack had helped Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who became a Trump White House aide, unload $70 million of the debt he owed on the troubled 666 Fifth Avenue skyscraper in Manhattan.

Barrack was called by Trump, who requested that he help Kushner avoid bankruptcy on the $1.8 billion purchase of the tower, according to The New York Times.

In November, Barrack was deposed as part of a lawsuit out of the D.C. attorney general’s office that accused the Presidential Inaugural Committee and the Trump Organization of abusing non-profit funds to enrich the Trump family.

As chairman of the Presidential Inaugural Committee Barrack had hired Rick Gates – Paul Manafort’s No. 2 who was sentenced to jailtime for his Ukraine lobbying – to help run the inauguration.

In 2010, Barrack had helped Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who became a Trump White House aide, unload $70 million of the debt he owed on the troubled 666 Fifth Avenue skyscraper in Manhattan. Trump and Barrack are pictured inside Trump Tower

Barrack is the founder of the private equity firm Colony Capital, though stepped down as the company’s chief executive in 2020, and in April resigned as executive chairman. He is pictured at the Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic in 2014

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine’s office said in a January 2020 statement announcing the lawsuit that an investigation found that Gates allowed the PIC, a non-profit, to enter contracts with the Trump hotel that was ‘at least twice the market rate.’

Former first lady Melania Trump’s former aide Stephanie Winston Wolkoff – who later wrote a tell-all about the first lady – warned Trump associates and family members that the pricing could be a problem.

‘Despite this warning, Gates allowed the PIC to enter into a contract with the Trump Hotel for four days of event space at a total cost of $1.03 million, an amount far above even the Hotel’s own internal pricing guidelines,’ the release from Racine’s office said.

Barrack had previously encouraged Trump to hire Manafort as his campaign chairman.

Barrack was credited in a 2018 story by The New York Times with rehabilitating Trump’s image among ‘Arab princes’ whose feathers were ruffled when Trump, as a candidate in December 2015, announced a ‘Muslim ban.’

The story describes Barrack as a ‘fellow tycoon and a flattering courtier, a confidant and a power broker.’

In April 2016 emails, Barrack calms down UAE’s Amb. Yousef al-Otaiba by pointing out Trump has ‘joint ventures in the UAE’ – a Trump International Golf Club in Dubai – after al-Otaiba expressed that ‘Confusion about your friend Donald Trump is VERY high.’

Barrack later introduced by email Otaiba and Kushner.

‘You will love him and he agrees with our agenda!’ he told the Emirati about the GOP candidate’s son-in-law.

In the same story, Barrack tells the paper that he rebuffed offers to become Trump’s Treasury secretary or ambassador to Mexico.

Barrack also sought a White House role as special envoy for Middle Eastern economic development, but the job never materialized during Trump’s one term in office.

A spokesperson for Barrack told The Times at the time that Barrack ‘sees his business in the Middle East as a way to help political dialogue and understanding, not the other way around, and he does so through relationships that span as far back as the reign of even some of the grandfathers of the current regional rulers.’