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Lobbyist Pleads Guilty In Scheme To Funnel Millions to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign From UAE

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


A lobbyist, who also served as a witness for then-special counsel Robert Mueller, has pleaded guilty to in a scheme to usher millions of dollars through the United Arab Emirates to Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

The Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that George Nader, a convicted child sex predator who served as a key witness for Mueller, “quietly pleaded guilty last year to involvement in an illegal campaign scheme funneling” the money from the UAE to Clinton’s ultimately unsuccessful campaign against then-GOP nominee Donald Trump.

Nader, a former lobbyist of Lebanese descent, was sentenced to 10 years in prison in June 2020 after he pleaded guilty to bringing a minor teenage boy to the U.S. for sex and for being in possession of child pornography.

However, it was not known until recently that he also pleaded guilty to the scheme to illegally funnel foreign money to Clinton’s campaign.

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It’s not clear if Clinton was aware of Nader’s actions at the time or whether she knew he had pleaded guilty to the scheme prior to the Washington Examiner’s reporting.

The outlet added:

The Department of Justice revealed in a December sentencing memo that Nader had pleaded guilty to a single count on July 22, 2020. The court filing says Nader and Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, a Los Angeles-based chief executive of Allied Wallet, “orchestrated a scheme to funnel over $3.5 million in foreign funds into the 2016 presidential election.”

The DOJ added that they “did so to gain direct access to unsuspecting high-level political figures to further their professional endeavors: in the defendant’s case, out of a desire to lobby on behalf and advance the interests of his client, the government of the United Arab Emirates; in Khawaja’s case, in the hopes of securing a political appointment in the future.”

Nader was indicted in December 2019 for what prosecutors said was his role in a scheme to conceal large sums of illegal campaign contributions to help Clinton in 2016. He was accused of conspiring with Khawaja to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions to political committees associated with Clinton.

Khawaja donated more than $4 million to Clinton’s campaign and those of other Democratic candidates in 2016. He later donated $1 million to then-President Donald Trump’s inauguration committee after he beat Clinton.

Khawaja, also of Lebanese descent, then shifted his focus to Republicans following the 2016 election. He met with Trump at a fundraiser in Manhattan and took a photo with him in the Oval Office.

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“Prosecutors said Nader agreed with them on sentencing guidelines, which would produce a range of 78-97 months behind bars, though the DOJ only asked for a 60-month sentence. The DOJ asked for the sentence to run consecutively to the child sex crime sentence,” the Washington Examiner reported.

The criminal charges against Nader were filed in 2020 under seal. He was charged with “conspiracy to make conduit contributions, cause false statements, and cause false entries in records.”

Nader, who was mentioned more than 100 times in Mueller’s 448-page ‘Russian collusion’ investigation report, was also somewhat of an operative. He was responsible for setting up a meeting between Trump associate and Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian official. Prince is the brother of Trump’s Education secretary, Betsy DeVos.

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As for Mueller’s probe, despite convicting Trump allies including former campaign manager Paul Manafort and National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, his investigative team did not find any evidence that Trump’s 2016 campaign colluded with Moscow to defeat Clinton, though she and several other Democrats continue to make those false claims.

Records show that Nader met at least 13 times with then-chief Trump political adviser Steve Bannon.

“The FBI claims that it did not discover that his devices contained child pornography until nearly a month after his interviews with the bureau,” the Examiner adds.

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